

Mettenr 
9otheMother 

of a 

Soldier 

Michardson Wright 





Class -JJ I 

Book_______ 



Copyriglit^I?_ 



C0PYRIG1ET DEPOSIT. 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 



Letters to the Mother 
of a Soldier 



By 



Richardson Wright 

Author of 'The Russians, An Interpretation" 



So here, while the mad guns curse overhead. 
And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor. 

Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, 
Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, 

But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed. 
And for the secret Scripture of the poor. 

— Thomas Kettle 




New York 

Frederick A. Stokes Company 

Publishers 



& 






K\ X> 



Copyright, 1918, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved, including that of translation 
into foreign languages 



MAR 27 1918 

©GI.A494329 



To 

My Mother and Father 

and Bobs 

Who is "in It" 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 



LETTERS TO THE MOTHER 
OF A SOLDIER 

"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

Did I tell you he came to see me? 

It was late noon. 

I had gone down to the pergola to look at the 
ramblers we set out this spring. 

There was a great peace over everything. 
The air had that baked noontide heaviness; a 
humid mist eddied and wavered lazily in the 
hollow above the river. Down the road the 
sputter of a motor died away into a dull hum. 

Suddenly the gate clicked. I looked up. 

There he stood — his service hat tilted rak- 
ishly aslant one eye, the tag of a tobacco sack 
dangling from his breast pocket. 

"What are you doing up here?" I called. 

"Just thought I'd like to see you." 

I suddenly realized the boy was fond of me. 
The run up to Silvermine on a hot day is no 



2 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

easy jaunt, you know. And, besides, I've 
been anything but the perfect uncle ! 

"Had luncheon?" 

"Lots of it." 

"Then let's sit here," I suggested as we en- 
tered the pergola. "Or perhaps you'd rather 
take a swim." 

We chose the swim — broke through the un- 
derbrush back of the berry patch and followed 
the path to the river. 

You know how the big flat rock rests on the 
edge of the falls beneath that tall cedar, and 
the water rushes past through a cleft down 
into the pool? That caught his eye. 

In a moment he stripped and was overboard. 

By George, Harry has grown to be a hand- 
some animal! The muscles on his shoulders 
and arms fairly rose above the stream in great 
humps. His face was bronzed. The water 
slicked back his hair and threw his forehead 
into relief. Military training had thinned him 
slightly. And I was glad to see that the lower 
lip you used to worry about had stiffened. 
He looked clean, four-squared and noble. 
How I envied him ! 

Finally he climbed up on the rock beside me 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 3 

to dry off — evidently towels are superfluous to 
a soldier — and we drifted to the war and his 
going over. I surmised he wanted to talk 
about it. 

"Well, do you like army life?" I finally 
asked, after he had told me of camp. 

"In some ways I don't like it at all," he an- 
swered hesitatingly. 

"How's that?" 

"I can't say that fighting is just exactly in 
my line. We fellows love a good fight, but we 
aren't forced to eat and sleep it the way Ger- 
mans are. We aren't trained to be brutes here 
in America. We treat our women differently 
— that's one way you can tell." 

"Why did you enlist then?" 

"I couldn't get the beastly thing out of my 
head." He waited a moment, asked for a cig- 
arette, lighted it, and then began in earnest. 
"I tried to work, but work seemed so footless. 
I didn't want to miss the fun, either. It 
seemed like the biggest game this old world 
has ever played. Not to get into it was a 
crime." 

"You just went in for a lark," I added cas- 
ually, "good sportsman stuff and all that?" 



4 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

"Well, no." He stopped and seemed a bit 
embarrassed. Then he looked straight at me. 
"This may sound silly and sentimental and 
soft, but I think you'll understand. ... If 
you saw your mother being tricked and lied to 
and spied upon and deceived and kicked around 
for three years, what would you do? Fight? 
You bet you would!" He smacked his hands 
together with an anger that seemed strange to 
so peaceful a spot. "That is exactly what the 
Germans have done here. My country isn't 
so different from my mother — Motherland. 
You understand?" 

I nodded. 

"And she stood for it until there was nothing 
left to stand for or forgive or palaver about. 
When she declared war I threw up my job and 
enlisted. Do you think I did right?" 

"If you hadn't, I wouldn't have cared to see 
you," I answered. 

"I'm glad you feel that way ... I had 
hoped you would." He seemed relieved. 
"And I guess mother will see it that way, too," 
he added. 

"Doesn't she like your enlisting?" 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 5 

"Oh, yes! Only you know how mothers 
are . . ." 

I assured him I did, and he dressed and we 
came back to the house. 

That was the first Tuesday in June — the 
5th. To-day comes your letter telling me that 
his contingent has sailed, and how lonely you 
feel. 

Dear Molly, I wish that I could only say 
your position was different from other moth- 
ers', but I cannot. 

The questions you ask, the wonders, hopes 
and fears that make chaos of your heart and 
brain only parallel the experience of a million 
mothers in America to-day. They, too, are 
lost with wonder and aghast with fear. They, 
too, have sent their sons to France. Equally 
upon them is thrown the burden of anxiety 
and dread. But there will be strength af- 
forded by such poignant democracy. 

In London, I am told, strangers stop each 
other on the streets, in theaters and restau- 
rants, and fall naturally into conversation. 
Imagine Britishers doing that! 

Much the same thing will happen here. 



6 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

Harry and his fellows drill side by side 
because they find confidence in organized ef- 
fort. You and the million other mothers will 
find companionship and courage because you 
bear a common burden in a common cause. 

Naturally, the finer a mother's sensibilities, 
the deeper into her soul is being etched the 
horrible picture of the outcome. But has not 
this its advantages? The deeper you feel, the 
more you are capable of looking the ghastly 
fact of this war in the face without fear, with- 
out trembling. 

That is the answer to your question — you 
must first face the fact of danger, sacrifice and 
possible loss. And you will be brave, you will 
be strong, you will be your own true, noble 
self, only in so far as you can take a brave, 
strong and noble attitude toward the war and 
Harry's part in it. 

At present you are trying to keep yourself 
busy with a multitude of war relief activities. 
Nothing could be wiser or more commendable. 
Any deed for the right in this evil hour, any 
little act to alleviate suffering has immense 
value and advantage. But do not think that 
these will help you dodge the fact. The invul- 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 7 

nerable armor you must wear in these days is 
unfailing belief in the righteousness of our 
cause. 

Courage! Be brave! 



The Office 
Dear Molly, 

Certainly this war is showing up men in 
their true values. 

This afternoon two men were found weep- 
ing in the office. Imagine it! Men about 
thirty. Both Americans. Both weeping real 
tears. 

One was crying for bitter disappointment. 
He had failed to pass his physical examina- 
tion for the army draft. 

The other was crying for joy. He, too, had 
failed to pass. 



The Club 
My dear Sister, 

Your fears for Harry larking around Paris 
are quite unfounded. He will be far too busy 
to lark. Besides, you must remember that the 
boy is no fool. 

If you bring up a boy to be clean and play 
straight and associate with decent men, you 
have done about all a mother can. Unques- 
tionably there are evil associations in the 
army — 

"Single men in barracks don't grow into 
plaster saints." 

It isn't a matter of chance or luck. It is a 
matter of breeding. The man with a strong 
moral constitution resists evil influences just 
as a healthy physical constitution resists germs 
of disease to which the weaker succumb. 

The boy will become hardened in the army, 
possibly rough. This will never hurt him. A 
good bath and a few nights between sheets 
will soften that sort of callous. 

Harry is a soldier, and a soldier is the an- 

9 



10 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

tithesis of the sissy. Don't expect him to be a 
little gentleman or a highly sensitized poetic 
soul. Expect him to be brutally direct — as di- 
rect as a bayonet thrust, obedient to the point 
of self-effacement, and above all courageous 
and happy. 

His officers will see to it that he is disci- 
plined, direct and obedient, but much will de- 
pend on you to keep him contented. When 
you write, write him only the cheery news. 
Spare him worries, for he will worry about you 
on the slightest inkling. Give him news — lots 
of it. Even the things that seem insignificant 
to you will be treasured by him. 

Make him feel that you are just the bright- 
est, bravest, chipperest little old mother in 
America ! 

Will you do that? 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

When people tell you that they can't see 
what need there is for American soldiers' going 
to France to fight, they show a suspicious ig- 
norance. That is one of the most common 
pro- German arguments. 

They can't see why, because they don't want 
to see why . . . 

Invariably you can measure the moral cali- 
ber of a man or woman by the extent to which 
injustice and crime horrify them. Germany's 
injustice and her criminal acts — Zeppelin 
raids, Belgian and Serbian atrocities, Arme- 
nian massacres and such — have been estab- 
lished beyond a shadow of doubt. No man or 
woman of principle can look upon them with- 
out being horrified, sickened and enraged. 

Many of us Americans could not at first 
sense the injustice of the Belgian invasion, be- 
cause we had no interest in Belgium. Yet 
that is as weak an argument as saying that 

you can read of a hideous crime without re- 

11 



12 "Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

volting, because you know none of the persons 
concerned. You revolt at the thought of mur- 
der. Why? Because murder is a blow struck 
at the code under which we live in peace and 
security. 

Germany's flaunting of her promises was a 
blow struck at the entire concept of interna- 
tional promises. It deliberately depreciated 
the value of a nation's word of honor. When 
she valued her promises to Belgium no more 
than a scrap of paper, the world of moral cali- 
ber ceased trusting Germany or giving her 
word the slightest credence, just as you would 
cease trusting a friend who deliberately, to 
gain her own nefarious ends, broke her prom- 
ises to you. 

From time to time you will meet people, glib 
of tongue and quick in rebuttal, who will at- 
tempt to cloud the fundamental fact by all 
manner of clever sophistry. In the face of 
such arguments you must hold fast to the 
basic principles of right and honor. 

That is what I meant when I said, in a pre- 
vious letter, that the invulnerable armor you 
must wear in these days is an unfailing belief 
in the righteousness of our cause. 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 13 

This war has taught us to take an interest 
in honor the world over. Eventually we will 
become as sensitive to chicanery, falsehood and 
crime in a foreign land as we are to them in 
our own. The moral leaders of the world 
have always shown this cosmopolitan con- 
science. To-day the man in the street is ac- 
quiring some of it. He will be a nobler man 
for it ; it will pervade, invigorate and vivify his 
life. It will make him a citizen of the world. 

But what will you say to your friends who 
cannot see why? Nothing. Hell knows no 
fury like a pro-German scorned. 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

Dusk came down the valley. 

I slipped out of the Mill and took the upper 
road — past the store, past the quaint green and 
blue cottage of the pretty girl who paints the 
magazine covers, and up to the hill beyond 
where the trees arch over the path. 

Lights shone out from some of the house 
windows. But most of the houses were dark. 
They looked out upon the purple hills and fast- 
gathering night with distrust. 

The myriad sounds of night commenced — 
rustling in the bushes, the sweep and whisper 
of trees, chirps from some sleepless bird, the 
conversation of crickets, the far-off howl of a 
dog at the moon rounding the shoulder of the 
hill. 

Past the bend came a new noise — high- 
pitched, inharmonious, human. But it halted 
me in my tracks. 

"Help of the helpless, O, abide with me . . ." 

Silently I dropped the ashes from my pipe 

14 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 15 

and slipped it into my pocket. It seemed ir- 
reverent to smoke. 

A few yards on, and the words came clearer. 
They came across a close-cropped lawn and 
down an alley of elms. The open door of the 
church and the two long windows beside it 
cut the dusk with paths of light. Far above, 
the white steeple reached into the night and 
caught silver from the new-risen moon and 
sparkling stars. 

"I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless ; 
Ills have no weight. . . ." 

A woman came down the steps and hurried 
across the path to the road. Her head was 
bowed. She seemed intent on going some- 
where. A moment, and she was lost around 
the bend. 

"Heav'n's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee, 
In life, in death . . ." 

The next time I looked up the steps were 
filled with people — women and young girls 
and an old man or two in Sunday blacks. 

They came down slowly in twos and threes. 

The young girls walked arm in arm. . . . 
This time a year ago a lad would have seen 
them home. 



The Club 
Dear Molly, 

"Safe in France!" 

A thrill ran down my old spine as I read it 
in the paper this morning, and I have been 
happy ever since — happy that they are there, 
but really envious of them. 

Do you realize, Molly, that Americans who 
never dreamed they would be in France, are 
there to-day, and that they have gone for such 
a purpose as never before Americans went to 
France to accomplish ! 

Before this, Americans always went to 
France to take something from her. To-day 
they are taking something to her. 

Think of the things you and dear old George 
and I went to France for — 

Paris was France for us in those days — 
Paris of the Pre-Catalan, the Louvre, the Pal- 
ais Royal; Paris of the lithesome grace and 
tinkling laughter; Paris of the white nights, 
where good Americans go when they die; 

16 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 17 

Paris, "the world's great mart where joy is 
trafficked in," as Alan Seeger put it. 

We were average, healthy-minded Ameri- 
cans. We had an affection for the Old 
World's way of living, and a decent regard for 
its culture and colorful past. But we went to 
France to have a good time. 

To-day a strange company of Americans 
has gone there. Men of stern purpose. Men 
in khaki. Men with guns and bayonets. Men 
with rails and locomotives and aeroplanes and 
artillery and all the grim munitions of war. 
Never before did such Americans go to France. 

I am proud that we can at last pay back our 
debt to France. Not the debt for Lafayette — 
I'm not thinking of that — but our own debt for 
our happy days there, our golden, idle hours, 
our rare spiritual awakenings, our schooling 
in noble and beautiful things. 

I heard this idea expressed by an editor re- 
cently. He has a boy in the American Ambu- 
lance who was awarded the Croix de Guerre, 
and in speaking of him, he said, "Before he 
left, I told Ned that I was too old to fight 
and give back half of what France gave me 
in the years I lived there, and that it was up 



18 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

to him to square my account. Now, by 
George, the French have insisted on piling up 
my debt by decorating him! It's character- 
istic of them, isn't it?" 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

Yes, that is a terrible fact, but it is true, nev- 
ertheless. American boys are just as vulner- 
able to bullets as French boys or British or 
Russian or German. 

Somehow, we have a vague notion that be- 
cause they are ours they can surmount all 
dangers. That was what mothers in other 
lands consoled themselves with — until the cas- 
ualty lists came in. 

We must all steel ourselves to accept these 
tragedies. We must be mentally ready — 
trained to receive blows and to "come back." 
You can "come back" if you are willing to 
train. A boxer trains for a fight, a runner for 
a race, why not you, mothers and fathers, for 
the spiritual conflicts which are surely coming 
to pass? 

Do not think that you can hastily acquire a 
stoicism to meet a desperate emergency. On 
the other hand, do not be constantly expecting 
a blow. Worry will no more prevent its com- 

19 



20 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

ing than worrying will stop a bullet in its 
course. Instead, go about your day with an 
air of determination, assurance and cheer. 

Keep yourself in the best possible health. 
The strong body will help maintain the strong 
mind. Do not overdo war activities. Have 
other interests — go to the theater now and 
then; drop into a "movie"; eat out at a res- 
taurant or a friend's house once in a while. 

Always carry your head high. You have a 
right to your pride. Besides, carrying your 
head high will make you walk correctly, and 
walking correctly is good for one's figure! 

I also think that the well-held head indicates 
the well-held spirit — a soul reserved, calm, ob- 
servant, sure of itself. If you do this in pub- 
lic, you will also do it in private. You will be 
a Spartan mother. 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dearest Sister of Mine, 

When I wrote you the other day about being 
a Spartan mother, I hesitated to speak of the 
one thing that, in my opinion, is the most nec- 
essary of all. 

Spartan mothers may never have shed tears, 
but I am sure they must have prayed. 

I am not going to tell you how to pray, dear 
Molly, but just — to pray. 

Prayer, as some one has said, is the con- 
sciousness of the presence of God. 

Once we become aware of this presence, we 
see clearer, we feel deeper, we have a stronger 
grip on life, because we understand, to some 
extent, the purposes of God. And the more 
we know Him and the more we appreciate His 
way of doing things, the greater is our willing- 
ness to accept that way without question. 

If only we could understand why God per- 
mits suffering and pain and loneliness, how 
much easier it would be to bear them! But 

that very ignorance is what challenges us to 

21 



22 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

devotion and sacrifice and noble deeds. It 
makes life worth the living. It makes the 
mother strong and her soldier son brave. 

In these days we must all lean very heavily 
on Him. 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

I am writing out on the "perch" — the plat- 
form I built last year over the water-wheel box. 

Save for a glimpse here and there through 
the leaves of the river gliding past my door, 
the trees hide me entirely from the road. 

For the last half -hour a humming-bird has 
been darting in and out the columbine at the 
foot of the steps. He has a nest not far from 
here, and he comes and goes like a tiny aero- 
plane, buzzing speedily through space, his eye 
keen for booty. He has been my sole distrac- 
tion — he and thoughts about your despair over 
Russia. 

It is terrifying to think that the Russian 
collapse may require the sacrifice of American 
lives to counteract its results. The Russians, 
drunk with freedom, have still to learn that 
loyalty to one's country is the duty and pre- 
rogative of a liberated people, that "freedom," 
as Pericles said, "is valor." 

If you knew the Russian people intimately, 

23 



24 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

you would not allow the present trouble to 
cloud the great vision of their future. Russia 
has passed through many a night as dark as 
this, but invariably, when dawn came, has she 
been found with her face to the light. 

Perhaps you cannot feel this intimacy. 
Americans have not always been on friendly 
terms with Russia. There are many reasons 
why we have not. 

Neither America nor Russia has striven very 
hard — despite several historical manifestations 
of interest — to foster an abiding friendship. 
Both nations have known the malevolence of 
misinformation and distrust. Both have suf- 
fered from geographic separation. Both have 
felt acutely the intervention of pernicious Teu- 
tonic influences. There has really been only a 
meager showing of that sympathy and senti- 
ment which, in other instances, has bred a 
camaraderie vital, advantageous and enduring. 

There is our relation to England, for exam- 
ple — 

We are bound to England by indisputable 
ties. We speak her tongue, have garnered the 
fruits of her literary achievements and are be- 
holden to her for many humanitarian benefits. 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 25 

She is at once our mother and our ally — a 
stern mother, a staunch ally. At her knee we 
learned those lessons of law and justice upon 
which our code is founded. 

We may not agree with all the things Eng- 
land has done or permitted done, yet, as she 
stretched forth the curtain of her habitations, 
she has set before us an example that we might 
do well to emulate. She has "turned a savage 
wilderness into a glorious empire," as Burke 
expressed it. She has made "the most exten- 
sive and honorable conquests not by destroy- 
ing but by promoting the wealth, the number, 
the happiness of the human race." 

Our return of the Boxer Indemnity, our hu- 
manitarian treatment of Cuba, our enlightened 
supervision of the Philippines — these are rec- 
ords of which we can be justly proud. But 
are they not the sort of things one would ex- 
pect from America? Are they not the sort of 
things one would expect from a nation with 
such a heritage? 

Then there is our relation to France. 

France represents all that the word "pal" 
means. She was our companion on the ven- 
ture of democracy. Many a time has she lent 



26 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

us a hand, and given us the stimulus of spirit- 
ual visions. We know her weaknesses, and 
still we love her. We would like to do things 
the way she does them. We envy the insou- 
ciance of her spirit. France, to borrow the 
poet's phrase, has lived with her arm around 
Life's shoulder. We, too, would like to live 
that way. 

But Russia we have held to be the wayward 
child of the nations. Time and again we have 
had reason to question the sincerity of her mo- 
tives and the dependability of her word. 

Russia is a land of mingled East and West. 
It has the good intentions of the West with 
the evil heritage of the East. It has constantly 
been trying to outgrow its bad political habits. 
Do not expect immediate perfection. Do not 
expect what even the authorities on Russia 
would hesitate to claim for her. 

Since March of 1917 Russia and America 
have been bound by new ties of sympathy. 
But so far as you and I and countless other 
Americans were concerned, we very often felt 
those ties near the snapping-point. We 
wanted to know, "Will Russia do anything?" 

At the time, you will remember, Haig and 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 27 

Nivelle were driving hard at the Hindenburg 
line, with encouraging success. We figured 
— and naturally — that if Brusiloff would do 
the same on the Eastern front Germany would 
soon be brought to her knees. In that we 
made a great mistake — we were measuring the 
situation from the military standpoint alone. 

The "dark forces" in Russia considered their 
country — just as we did — merely a military 
factor. They persistently refused to recog- 
nize what the war was being fought for. They 
lacked the spiritual depth necessary to grasp 
the immense fundamental philosophy of this 
struggle — the fact that in the travail of the 
universe is being brought forth the concept of 
world-wide democracy, and that Russia is play- 
ing a great part in it. 

What we Americans witnessed with breath- 
less anxiety in the early days of 1917 was the 
faint flutter of life in the new-born child of 
democracy. We wanted it to live, because it 
was after our own fashion and image. We 
wanted it to prevail against the powers of 
darkness lest we, too, become enshrouded in 
them. Had democracy died in that hour, our 
faith would have been vain. 



28 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

Do you see now, Molly, why we must be 
patient with the Russians? 

Do not expect that all Russians will grasp 
the meaning of democracy. Even here in 
America we do not all understand it. Russia 
with its 180,000,000 souls speaking 150 tongues 
and dialects, must move along slowly. We 
who have inherited the stride of freedom must 
have patience with these people who are just 
learning to walk without bonds. 

It makes me prouder to feel that we are 
playing a part in this great liberation, that 
my nephew and the million other lads who 
have gone across are helping Russia attain the 
freedom for which she has fought these five 
centuries. 

Somehow I feel that this is the "unfinished 
work" to which Lincoln dedicated our nation. 



The Club 
Dear Molly, 

What books shall you read these days? 

The books that you would read at any other 
time. 

It is a great mistake, I feel, to plunge into 
deep despair and then try to anchor yourself 
there by reading a lot of pious works. 

Do not read in order to forget ; read in order 
to be normal and contented, and to understand 
the great facts of this war. 

By all means read H. G. Wells. He comes 
from the future, and his spiritual development 
is unquestionably one of the most interesting 
progresses we have witnessed. G. K. Ches- 
terton comes from the past, and I feel that he 
has failed lamentably to measure up to the de- 
mands of this war. Kipling, too, has done 
nothing more than average good reporting. 

Do not miss reading the books written by 
the lads who have been in the thick of the fight. 
Some of them are the most amazing pieces of 

29 



30 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

literature — lads in their early twenties, lads 
who have been seared and purged and cleansed 
by the fire, and who speak in the simple tongue 
of major prophets. 

It is unnecessary to tell you to read the Bible. 
It is even difficult to understand a daily news- 
paper unless one knows his Scriptures. There 
is a chapter — the 17th of St. John — that has 
meant a lot to me these past few weeks, and 
perhaps it will mean a lot to you. It begins, 
you know, with that noble address, "Father, 
the hour has come ; glorify thy son that thy son 
also may glorify thee!" 

Then, if you do not know them, get yourself 
copies of "The Road Mender" by Michael 
Fairless and "The Private Papers of Henry 
Ryecroft," by George Gissing. You will want 
to own them. They are not the kind of books 
one can borrow satisfactorily. 

I am also a great believer in knowing good 
poetry by heart. Sometimes, when words fail 
us, a line of verse will spring to our lips and 
give us just that expression which the circum- 
stances demand. 

You might learn Henley's "Out of the night 
that covers me," and that passage from Fran- 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 31 

cis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven" that be- 
gins — 

"I was heavy with the even 
When she lit her glimmering tapers" 

and that other group of lines commencing 
with — 

"Ah! must — 
Designer Infinite ! — 

Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with 
it? . . ." 

Of course, there are hundreds of other poems 
and lines, and you will find those that really- 
mean something to you. 

Did it ever occur to you that there is some 
very fine poetry in our hymns? Hymns "fit 
in" as nothing else does. "O God, our help in 
ages past," "Jesu, the very thought of Thee," 
and "The Son of God goes forth to war" are 
all favorites of mine. I catch myself humming 
them now and then. It doesn't hurt. Doubt- 
less you have your own favorites, too. 



The Office 
Dear old Molly, 

I am glad you asked me why we are pledg- 
ing such huge sums to our Allies. You could 
never be expected to understand the financial 
situation. But then, it is more than a question 
of finance ; it is a point of honor. 

First, our Allies need the money — that is 
obvious. 

Second, we have it to lend. 

But, most important of all, we held this 
money only as trustees. 

During the two and a half years before we 
came into this war we made immense profits 
out of the misfortunes of the European na- 
tions. They were obliged to buy here, and, 
unless we had refused to manufacture muni- 
tions, we could not help making the money. 
In a business sense this was legitimate enough, 
but there are other circumstances in this world 
beside business. 

Had we continued being neutral, willing to 
pocket our pride and our ideals for the sake of 

32 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 33 

making more money, we would have stood in 
danger of the greatest moral collapse that ever 
threatened a people. Too long have we borne 
the stigma of being money-grabbers. "Busi- 
ness Over All" was the inscription the Ger- 
mans put on the medal they struck to celebrate 
the Lusitania sinking. To them, who cannot 
understand the psychology of a free people 
and of American ideals, the opprobrious 
phrase was justifiable. 

When we threw in our lot with the Allies, 
we took our stand at a bar of judgment. The 
world was to see if the charge of gross mate- 
rialism could be sustained. And we proved 
that we knew ourselves not the owners of this 
vast wealth, but only its trustees. 

When America went to war, more than her 
bankers were enrolled — we called to the colors 
the wealth of our youth's vigor, the wise coun- 
sel of our business men, the sacrifices of a mil- 
lion mothers, the output of the mines, the en- 
ergy of a thousand rushing streams, the prod- 
uct of ten thousand factories, the timber upon 
countless hills, and the growing crops of an en- 
tire continent. All America went to war. 
For all America knew that the hour had come 



34 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

when our nation must measure up to its pro- 
fessed ideals. 

I am proud to be alive to-day. America has 
made good ! 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

Do you remember my neighbor Walton, 
whose fields touch the back of my garden? 
He's a giant of a man; a real Yankee farmer, 
with a face cross-grained, rough-hewn and 
weather-worn as a boulder of granite, hands 
gnarled by a lifetime at the plow, and eyes 
limpid blue like a sailor's. Usually he is a 
taciturn old codger, brusque and grumpy. 
To-day I found him quite amiable. 

He was hilling corn with a horse cultivator 
down by the back fence. The air was heavy 
with the rich odor of newly turned earth. As 
I strolled over to pass the time of day with 
him he looked up, and his face lighted with an 
unusual cheer. 

"MorninV 

"Good-morning, Mr. Walton. How are 
things?" 

"Whoa!" He drew in his horse, threw the 
reins off his neck and came to where I was 

35 



36 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

standing. "Everything's fine this mornin'. 
Yes, sir, it is." Then he stopped. 

"D'you remember that boy Al of mine?" he 
asked. There was a ring of pride in his voice. 

"I certainly do. Haven't seen Al for a long 
time." 

"No. He ain't been up here of late. I jist 
heard from him. He got over all right." 

"Over where?" 

"France." 

"No ! You don't mean to tell me Al's in the 
army!" My surprise was genuine. As a lad 
Al Walton was nothing but a nondescript 
farmer's boy with no special characteristics to 
remember him by. 

"Yes, sir, my Al's a soldier." The old man 
continued. "And I bet he makes a good one. 
He always was a strong little tike, always get- 
tin' in fights. I was for makin' a farmer out of 
him, but he says to me, 'No, Pop, I ain't gona 
stay here and work the way you have. New 
York for mine. That's where the money is.' 
Of course, I labored with him, but it weren't no 
use. ... So Al, he went down to the city to 
work. He was gettin' twelve dollars a week 
when the war started." 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 37 

Walton pushed back his hat and looked up 
to where the green and saffron and tannish 
checker-board hills stretched off to the blue 
horizon. A strange light spread over his face, 
such as glows over a summer sky when sheet 
lightning shoots across it. "But I guess it's all 
right," he went on slowly. "I've got a lot of 
work in me yet. . . . But here's me and the 
missus. And there's Al in France, fightin'." 

Suddenly he seemed to recollect. "B' the 
way, Al spoke about Mrs. Grahame's boy 
Harry. He says he's in his regiment. That's 
funny, ain't it?" 

Just then I heard the postman's whistle and 
went back to take the mail. There was your 
letter and Harry's with the same news about 
Al Walton. Ever since, I have been marvel- 
ing at the strange bedfellows this war has made. 

Can't you picture Al Walton's career? His 
father told me about it later. 

Fearing the drudgery and loneliness and 
poor wage of farm life, he goes to the city and 
first gets a job at nine dollars a week in a 
foundry. That work proves too arduous and 
he finds himself an assistant shipping clerk in 
an express office at a dollar advance. A year 



38 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

later, tiring of that, he lands a place back of 
the counter in a grocery store. From this he 
goes into the army — a calling where wages 
really mean little. 

Meantime Harry is being nursed through a 
costly preparatory school and a costlier college. 

He learns to wear dinner clothes and dance 
and parse Latin sentences and recite the sa- 
lient dates of English history. He has a room 
at college that is lined with banners and post- 
ers and books and mementos of a hundred 
glorious days and nights. 

He plays on the college tennis team, writes 
terrible verse for the college paper, passes 
through a Swinburne madness to a fist-pound- 
ing enthusiasm for Kipling and O. Henry. 
And then he graduates, dances all night at the 
senior "prom," sings doleful songs with other 
girls and boys at dawn under the old elms of 
the campus, and next morning is awarded a 
piece of parchment assuring those "to whom 
these presents shall come" — and who can read 
Latin — that Henry Bartholomew Grahame, 
having passed sufficient courses in the required 
number of learned subjects, is entitled to be a 
Bachelor of Arts. 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 39 

Thus fortified, he takes the icy plunge into 
the commercial world. Fifteen dollars a week 
as an advertising solicitor is not a bad begin- 
ning. 

You, most indulgent of mothers, see that he 
never wants — the rent is always paid, the suits 
always pressed, the coin always in hand for 
amusements. And every few months you 
come to town, and he tells you there is Big 
Money in the Advertising Game — and you go 
home happy with the roseate dream of your lad 
becoming a Commercial Giant ! 

Suddenly to the boys of this country is issued 
the challenge: "The world must be made safe 
for Democracy!" 

On his way home in the subway that night 
Al Walton reads of the war. He talks it over 
with folks at the boarding-house — and his sleep 
is disturbed by strange dreams. 

That night Harry rides up in the bus, but 
forgets to look at the eddies of pretty girls on 
the pavement, so engrossed is he with the re- 
port that America has taken her stand with 
France and Britain against the malefactor of 
the world. Doubtless that night he sits by 



40 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

the window, his feet on the sill, and gazes for 
hours over the housetops with never a word. 

And finally Al Walton goes to his boss and 
says that he simply can't stand it any longer, 
and is going to enlist. And Harry goes to his 
boss and says he simply can't stand it any 
longer, and is going to enlist. 

A week later they are lined up shoulder to 
shoulder. They wear the same sort of uni- 
form, carry the same sort of gun and bayonet 
and kit. 

To-night they sleep in pup tents side by side. 
They will live in the trenches as mates. They 
will go "over the top" as brothers, fighting and 
suffering as fellows in a common cause. 

Khaki is a great leveler. Through it func- 
tions the splendid democracy of war. It dis- 
solves prejudices and artificial social distinc- 
tions. It gives all men a re-birth, from which 
they start again free and equal. 



En route 
Dear Molly, 

This is too good to keep. 

As I was walking to the train this morning 
I met my neighbor Walton on the road. He 
was driving his cultivator down to the lower 
field. 

"What do you think that boy of mine says?" 
he called. "Al says he's never got such good 
things to eat as he's had since he's been in the 
army. That's funny, ain't it?" 

I assured him it was. Although I didn't 
say what I thought — that Al must have been 
making some invidious comparisons between 
the fare Uncle Sam sets out and the meals 
provided by a certain lady ogre of a Brooklyn 
boarding-house ! 

I suppose Harry will be writing next that 
there is nothing in the world to compare with 
army beans ! 

Cheer up, beans won't hurt him. 



41 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Molly dear, 

How shall you feel toward German moth- 



ers 



You say the human heart is the human heart 
the world over, that a Prussian mother can 
just as easily be broken with grief as can an 
American or British or French. That is very 
true. Mother love is a universal element. 
The mothers of Germany in the age of that 
nation's greatest and tenderest sentiment were 
enthroned above all else. Some of that senti- 
ment remains in the masses of the German 
people to-day. Yet the training of the last 
three generations in Germany has not been di- 
rected toward a cherishing of the mother ideal. 

The Prussian ideal for a woman is to bear 
children — as many as she can — cook the 
meals and represent the family at divine wor- 
ship. This has had a terrible effect on both 
men and women. It has made the woman a 
mere bearer of burdens. It has made the man 
less the companion of his wife and more her 

42 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 43 

overlord. The man was highly prized because 
he was a potential fighting unit. He fitted 
exactly into the Prussian military scheme, and 
so did the woman, if kept in her place as con- 
stant child-bearer, cook and church attendant. 

From this has come the servility of German 
womanhood, and a lowering of the national 
ideals. For the nation that degrades its wo- 
men must inevitably become gross, coarse, and 
brutal. 

Do you remember my writing you last 
month the way Harry expressed it? "We are 
not naturally brutes. We treat our women 
differently. That's one way you can tell." 
There you have a concise summary of a Ger- 
man national characteristic. Of course, there 
are countless exceptions, but the Prussian ideal 
remains dominant. And the Prussian ideal is 
what we are fighting to crush. 

Some years back I was sitting on the steps 
of a hotel at Cortina watching a number of 
Germans come up the mountain. They were 
on a walking tour. The men came first, bur- 
dened only by their own corpulence and 
alpen-stocks. Several moments after the 
women hove in sight. Each woman carried a 



44 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

heavy knapsack, and she dragged along as 
though she simply could not walk another step. 

Later in the evening a girl of our party fell 
into conversation with one of the women and 
was bold enough to ask, "Why don't you 
women make the men carry the knapsacks on 
these tramps?" 

"Oh, but I am the wife," the frau answered 
cheerfully. And she really didn't seem to 
mind it at all. 

This is a peaceful example of Prussian Kul- 
tur in the working. It coarsened the men and 
hardened the women beyond complaint or re- 
monstrance. 

Don't waste your time, Molly, wondering 
if German mothers feel anguish as deep as 
American mothers. It would be utterly in- 
human to say that they do not. They suffer 
even more. They have almost been forced to 
become numb, cold and acceptant. But it is 
for you to look ahead to that day when, 
through our victory over the Prussian ideal, 
German womanhood will be emancipated. 

The boys who are in France may not be 
aware of it, but their fighting is a piece of no- 
ble gallantry. Victory for their arms will 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 45 

mean victory for German women. The bur- 
dens our soldiers bear in France to-day and 
you bear here in your heart are carried for the 
women on the other side of No Man's Land. 
. . . Some day they will understand this. 



On the road 
Dear Sis, 

An intense longing for quiet crept over me. 
I took a book, and followed the river road up 
to a lake in the hills, and sat down to enjoy 
what I had come to find. 

What a disillusion! 

I had thought it would be peace, ineffable 
peace, to lie beside the limpid, lustral waters 
of that lake. 

Then suddenly came the consciousness that 
beneath its calm was a buried tumult — the 
constant urging of bottom springs, the blind 
groping of roots into the dark earth, the tire- 
less reach upward and outward of branch and 
stem and leaf. . . . Only the stones would 
seem to scorn the tumult, stones that had 
passed through the trying fires and the cooling 
of ages and have at last attained the serene 
inaction of maturity. 



4G 



The Office 
Dear Molly, 

Yes, I know the bayonet practice that 
Harry describes is vivid. And I guess the 
actual practice is much more vivid than his de- 
scription. But please, Molly, don't worry 
about its ruining his morals. 

Remember this — our Allies fought with the 
accepted instruments of war until the Hun 
turned loose his insane fury of gas and fire 
and contagious germs. These were the things 
he had solemnly pledged at The Hague not 
to use. 

Thank God, we have not yet taken to scat- 
tering contagious germs ; please God we never 
shall. But we must meet the foe with steel of 
his own strength. It would be wrong to do 
otherwise. You cannot argue with a machine 
gun; you can only answer it with a machine 
gun of greater capacity for destruction. You 
cannot compromise with a mad beast or a man 
who deliberately rapes, murders, loots and 
burns ; you must kill him. 

47 



48 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

If you feel that jabbing six inches of cold 
steel into Germans will make brutes of Harry 
and his fellows, what would you think about 
him if he refused to do it? Eh? 

In times of peace the man who refuses to 
defend his fellow man against the unjust and 
murderous assault of a thug is called a cow- 
ard. How much more is he a coward who sees 
the bleeding and mutilated forms of outraged 
men and women and the ruins of their homes, 
and does not rush to their defense? This sort 
of bravery, Molly, is what you gave the boy 
yourself. 

No parents could have watched over the 
training of their boy more devotedly than you 
and George. You taught him tenderness, un- 
selfishness, loyalty, laughter, courage, and en- 
durance, and with these things to play the 
great game. Put a bayonet in such a man's 
hand and tell him to kill his foe. He will kill 
not because he has a lust for blood, but be- 
cause of the righteousness of his cause. 

You can differentiate between the men 
who have a lust for blood and those who have 
not by the way they treat the vanquished foe. 
The difference between the German treatment 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 49 

of prisoners and the allies, clearly illustrates 
this point. 

There have been too many proven cases of 
Germans' shooting, mutilating, torturing and 
committing other unspeakable retaliations on 
the man who is down to leave the slightest 
doubt in my mind that the Prussian ideal is an 
ideal of blood lust. 

When Harry and the other boys finish with 
this war there is no reason to believe that they 
will be anything but morally and physically 
strengthened. They will be so sickened of 
fighting, of bloodshed and destruction that 
they will never be able to think of taking up 
arms again. 

But, also, we will never be able to accuse 
them of cowardice. They are fighting a beast 
that brooks no opponent, even the weakest. 
Six inches of cold steel is the only thing that 
can halt that beast. 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

To-day I left the office early, came up to the 
country, and started out for a long tramp with 
Smudge. Faithful beast, he heeled every 
step of the way, and when I slashed the road- 
side bushes in my wrath and talked aloud, he 
never so much as growled. I am feeling much 
better now — less discouraged and more capa- 
ble of looking facts in the face. A good walk 
in the country is the best antidote for war 
blues. 

When you wrote me that the bad news of 
the U-boat attacks and the feeble advances of 
the French and British had thrown you into 
the depths of despair, I had a secret feeling of 
gratitude. 

Please do not misunderstand me. 

You are just a mother- woman, concerned 
with your home and the welfare of your boy, 
and the great world events have not meant so 
much to you before as they do now. There 
are thousands of other mothers here in Amer- 

50 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 51 

ica who have read the war news for three 
years, have taken sides, have suffered dismay 
or triumph, yet to whom the war was not a 
vital, burning subject until the participation 
of their own sons in it brought it vividly home 
to them. 

Had the powers that sunk our ships been 
permitted to go unpunished and unthwarted, 
the peace and security of your home in the 
golden fields of the South and my little old 
mill beside the quiet waters of Silvermine 
would have been threatened. Life would have 
meant a shuttered house in a dark street. 

We do not recognize the right to murder, to 
rape, to loot, or to destroy. Our forefathers 
sacrificed and we, too, fought that life might 
be more precious, womanhood more revered, 
property more secure, and the worth-while 
things of this world made abiding. 

To hold fast these liberties, bought with so 
much precious blood, we must win — and win 
in the right way. 

We are not sudden haters ; but by dint 
Of many horrors all our hearts are quick. 

Germany reached the zenith of her aspira- 



52 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

tion in a hymn of hate. We must reach ours 
not in hate, but in a grim determination to 
fight until the principles of decency and right 
are unquestionably secure against further at- 
tack. We must do more — we must set up 
such a noble standard that the German people 
will see through the gross deception that has 
been played on them and rise in their might 
to cast it forever from their nation. 

Many times have the Allies met with terri- 
ble defeat and appalling losses. The losses 
and delays last week are infinitesimal com- 
pared with some that have gone before. Our 
American troops will also meet with reverses, 
and line after line will have to fall. We are 
not superhuman — and the foe is desperate. 
But in no wise must we permit this to under- 
mine our loyalty to our causes or weaken our 
belief in the ultimate victory. 

In dark days such as these, remember the 
pledge the great English statesman made. 
It is among the world's noblest utterances: 
"Never shall the sword be sheathed until the 
object is accomplished for which it was 
drawn." 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

My neighbor Walton has said unmention- 
able things about the censor. He speaks of 
him in vivid adjectives, calls him rural, hand- 
hewn, New England pseudonyms. 

I know. 

Did he not hurl these adjectives over my 
back fence this morning? And did it not re- 
quire all my powers of persuasion to get the 
old gentleman back into a presentable frame 
of mind? 

Apparently Al must have been too meti- 
culous about geographical identification in his 
letter, and the censor exercised summary 
measures. 

The envelope was in Al's handwriting, but 
the enclosure was in another's. It bore the 
message : 

Dear Sir, 

Your son is well and happy, but he talks too much. 

Perhaps this may explain some of Harry's 
future silences. 

53 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

You can't understand the slacker? 

I do not wonder. 

It is difficult to understand how a man can 
refuse to defend his motherland when she is 
attacked and her principles flaunted. And 
yet, dear Molly, for the same reasons that man 
would refuse to defend his mother. 

The slacker is fundamentally a coward. 

Now cowardice involves many things. 
Fear of physical discomfort, injury and death 
is one — and this is the least fear the slacker 
knows. Fear of material loss is another. 
And this is his greatest fear. 

He does not fear death, because he cannot 
look that far. He very much fears material 
loss, because that marks the breadth and zen- 
ith of his vision. 

If the slacker could see some way to gain 
advantage or make money out of war, he 
would go, and go gladly. The slacker looks 
on war as a business proposition: it interferes 

54 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 55 

with commerce, it destroys capital, it causes 
mercantile uncertainty. This no one would 
deny. 

It is also part of the metabolism of the race 
— the constant tearing down and tireless build- 
ing up, the growth and decay that constitute 
the human struggle toward perfection. 

This war must have come sooner or later, 
for the cancer of German autocracy was fast 
spreading over the fair body of the world. 
Only an heroic measure could stop it. And 
we chose that measure. 

What if our wealth does slip through our 
hands, what if the fields do whiten with the 
bones of countless sons, if only we can ac- 
complish this purpose? For we live not for 
to-day but for to-morrow. 

Life begins to-morrow. 

You gave of yourself in pain that a son 
might be born, and his father labored not for 
his own advantage but that that son might be 
better fitted to carry on the work in his own 
generation. You have lived and worked for 
to-morrow. 

To-day, your son bears onward that ideal, 
willing, if need be, to give his life for it, even 



56 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

as you were willing to give your life for it. 

Of these things the slacker knows naught. 
To-morrow is only another day to him. 

To you and to the men in France, to-mor- 
row is a huge opportunity toward which the 
race must progress at all costs. They are 
storming the ramparts of the future, these lads. 
Their eyes behold the to-morrow of the world. 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly Mine, 

To-day as I was going for my train, traffic 
was blocked to let a regiment pass. It was 
marching off to camp. 

There was some sporadic cheering; a woman 
behind me broke into tears. But, on the 
whole, the pavements were quiet. It was no 
hour for exultation, and I was glad there was 
little of it. The men slipped by, rank on rank, 
in that quiet fashion our soldiers march. Fi- 
nally came the line of mounted police, and the 
crowd surged across the street. 

"All kids," remarked a man at my elbow. 

And they were, for the most part, — "big, in- 
tolerant, gallant boys." 

It seemed a hideous waste to send such lads 
forth to battle. It seemed to be robbing 
them of so much of life — life full of oppor- 
tunity, of sunshine and laughter. Yet, as 
they passed, I could not help saying to them, 
"Young men, I hail you on the threshold of 
great careers!" 

57 



58 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

In our poor, blind, stupid way we try to 
measure the value of life by length of years. 
We have fallen into the habit of extolling old 
age, of thinking that long years are necessa- 
rily full years. And it is all wrong. 

Time has little to do with achievement. 
Earnestness, sincerity, devotion have; and 
these qualities youth possesses. Old men daw- 
dle, procrastinate, question; youth plunges 
ahead, drives direct to his goal and never rests 
until he achieves it. Life is valuable only ac- 
cording to the intensity with which it is lived. 

There are, of course, hundreds of men who 
have not achieved until well past middle life. 
But they are exceptions. This is the age of 
the young man. The young man who has not 
achieved something definite by thirty-two, or 
is on the road to attaining it, had better look 
to his honors. As William Allen White said: 
"Few men who have much to say or do, say it 
or do it after forty." 

Thousands of lads have gone down in this 
war whose civil careers were suddenly and cru- 
elly cut off. Yet, wouldn't you say that their 
death was their crowning achievement? 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 59 

"These laid the world away; poured out the red 
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be 
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, 
That men call age." 

We cannot measure the fullness of a man's 
life by the fact that he appears to get the best 
out of life, but that life gets the best out of 
him. A man starts to die the day life ceases 
to draw from him some contribution for the 
race. 

In the ranks of those men I saw to-day there 
may have been scores who ceased living long 
ago, who ceased giving to life. To them the 
war has come as another chance, a veritable 
resurrection wherein they will redeem the debt 
charged against them by the one huge pay- 
ment of life itself. 



The Club 
Dear Molly, 

I am watching an extraordinary sight. 

It is five o'clock. The grill is filled to ca- 
pacity. Every table is occupied and extra 
chairs have been brought in from the writing- 
room. 

Half the men are in khaki — officers fgr the 
greater part, with a scattering of navy men in 
white suits. And — this is the extraordinary 
part — not a man in that grill is drinking any- 
thing stronger than ginger ale. 

The club complies with the law which for- 
bids the sale of intoxicants to men in uniform. 
The men in civilians' comply with good taste, 
and do not drink intoxicants in the presence of 
men who cannot have them. 

A year ago most of those men would have 
been drinking cocktails and highballs. 

The good or evil of these drinks is not my 
concern. The fact is that prohibition is com- 
ing in a way we least expected. It is non- 
drinking by mutual consent. 

60 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 61 

If you want to stop an evil, put it in the 
category of those things which "aren't done." 
That is what the army did, and to-day the man 
who drinks an intoxicant in the presence of 
the man in uniform is simply out of it. We 
require no presidential exactment or ukase 
from a tsar to prohibit strong drink. The 
consensus of opinion considers it bad taste. 

Nor do I think the fashion will come back. 
Over a million soldiers in America to-day are 
not drinking. Some, because the law forbids, 
but most of them because a man cannot be a 
drinker and a good soldier at the same time. 
When peace comes, there will be a million men 
who will have learned that a clear head is the 
principal essential in business for holding 
down any kind of a job. 

Yes, war is a terrible thing. It is a con- 
suming fire. But fire is also cleansing. 



The Office 
Dear Molly, 

Can a man retrieve himself by the manner 
of his dying? 

The other day I wrote you that I believed 
he could. I said that some men would redeem 
the debt charged against them by the one huge 
payment of life itself. There are many of 
our soldiers who will. I know of a number of 
men in the British and Russian army who al- 
ready have. 

There was Ivan S , captain of the 4th 

Amur Rifles, a Cossack I met in Blagowest- 
chensk. I was dining at the "Metropole" 
when he first came in — a huge mountain of a 
man with a face like a clenched fist, and a most 
unenviable record. He had been sent out to 
a Siberian command to "cool off," having dis- 
graced himself by debauchery and cruelty in 
St. Petersburg which even that giddy capital 
could not condone or forget. Scarcely a man 
in his barracks mess but loathed him, for, in- 
stead of cooling off, S grew all the worse 

62 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 63 

in this Asiatic frontier post. Nightly, his 
orderly would take him home intoxicated, and 
nightly he would thrash his orderly. It was 
rumored that he had killed two orderlies al- 
ready. 

I knew S because he challenged me to a 

duel. After that we were friends — bowing 
friends. 

A mutual acquaintance in the Russian army 
has just written me that he fell in the Caucasus 
campaign last winter. 

It was a bitterly cold night. His company 
had been cut off from communication with the 
rear by heavy snow-drifts. Man after man 
had been killed or frozen to death trying to 

bring up food. This night S kept his 

men in the dugout where there was a fire and 
took the watches on the listening post himself. 

They found him the next morning several 
yards in front of the trench. His body was 
riddled with bullets and frozen stiff. Beside 
him lay a dead Turk with fresh bandages on 

his head. S had heard his cry for help 

during the night and had crept out to dress his 
wounds. 

Thus died one of the vilest blackguards I 



64 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

have ever known — an utterly wicked man, a 
murderer, a drunkard, a lecher. But he went 
out alone, and in the darkness gave his life to 

succor a foe. If S that night did not 

sweep the books clear by the huge gift of life 
itself, then I am willing to become an uncom- 
promising atheist. 

Thousands of deeds like this, and even 
braver, have been crowded into the past three 
years. Men who in their private lives have 
refused to live and labor for an ideal have been 
willing to fling away their lives for it. From 
the nadir of evil many a man has risen to a 
sublime occasion in this war, risen to the very 
zenith of moral achievement. It is not when 
nor where they died that counted, but how. 
And because they died so magnificently, the 
world is a better place for you and me to live 
in. 

"I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
me," runs the promise. 

In that lonely hour, poor S was indeed 

lifted up — lifted up from a plane of evil living 
and crime to a plane of uttermost sacrifice and 
purity, lifted up as an example to men, that 
they might be nobler for his one noble deed. 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

Don't blame me if I get blasphemous. The 
mere mention of disloyal, alleged Americans 
sickens me, makes me suspicious, ashamed. 
Yet, on second sober thought, I have the most 
serious heart-searchings. 

If our foreign born citizens — our Irish- 
Americans, German- Americans, and Russian 
Jews are so bitterly opposed to our part in this 
war, then something must be wrong with 
American methods of naturalization. Our 
boasted melting pot isn't working the way it 
should. If after these generations of peace 
and ^prosperity we have failed to absorb these 
people, failed to make our country their coun- 
try and our flag their flag, then it is about time 
we looked into the matter. 

It is easy enough to blame German propa- 
ganda and bribery for this, but something is 
wrong with us if it is possible to bribe these 
people. 

The other day I was reading an article on 

65 



66 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

gardens by George Cable that gives an inter- 
esting parallel. 

"As soon as you pass out of the domain of 
formal gardening, gardening submitted to a 
severe architecture, our gardening is a con- 
quest of nature around us ; but it is not a Ger- 
man conquest. It is a benevolent, gracious 
naturalization of nature to citizenship under 
the home's domain, and an American garden 
should remain American whatever it borrows 
from Japan, England, Italy or Holland. . . . 
At least four-fifths of all the commonest and 
most beautiful things in our garden are ex- 
otics, but they are naturalized citizens and 
have themselves long forgotten that they came 
from China, Scotland, Persia, or the islands of 
the seven seas." 

A benevolent, gracious naturalization to 
citizenship under the home's domain. 

We have been benevolent. No nation un- 
der the sun is more benevolent to its newcom- 
ers. We have been gracious and hospitable 
and willing to tolerate all manner of misun- 
derstanding and imposition. But I wonder 
if we have been naturalizing these new people 
to citizenship under the home's domain? 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 67 

Our great wealth and the apparent ease 
with which money can be made here have given 
us the reputation of a purely material people. 
Many foreigners come to America in the same 
spirit that a man goes to a sanitarium — not to 
dwell there for the rest of life, but to recuper- 
ate or gain immediate financial health in the 
shortest time possible and by the most inten- 
sive methods. 

The second generation of foreigners — de- 
scendants of the men who came to stay — are 
unquestionably loyal to this country, because 
they have been naturalized to citizenship under 
the home's domain. The first generation has 
a divided allegiance because we Americans 
have failed to make the home the reason for 
living here. America was once a harbor for 
the persecuted, where they could set up their 
homes and live without molestation. To-day 
it is a place to make money. 

I do not mean to make a sweeping general- 
ization about the weakness of the American 
home, but I do know that on the other side the 
American home has been painted in colors 
which make it a byword and a mockery. Our 
divorces reek to Heaven, our over-night mil- 



68 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

lionaires act like mad men, our slavery to ab- 
surd conventions, our respect for material ac- 
cumulation and our socially ambitious middle 
class — all these pale the ideal of home into 
insignificance. 

Simplicity, loyalty, thrift, hard work — on 
these principles the domain of the home is 
built. Let us set up these standards, let us 
impress them on every foreigner coming to 
our shores. Let us forever stamp out that vile 
reputation of easy money, fast living and loose 
loving. Let us give these exotics, whom we 
would naturalize in this beautiful garden of 
America, a decent soil in which to take root 
and grow sturdily. Then and only then will 
the flower of their loyalty blossom. 

No, Molly, the fault is not so often in the 
seed. Where most gardens fail, and where 
America has failed, is that we have not chosen 
and prepared the right soil in which to plant it. 



The Office 
Dear Sis, 

I often wish you were in New York these 
days. There are so many unforgetable sights. 
Enthusiasm keeps at a white heat here. 
There is constant parading. Khaki crowds 
the pavements. The city wears a cosmopoli- 
tan air with its allied flags and men in varied 
uniforms — Kilties and French poilus and Brit- 
ish officers and an occasional Cossack in full 
sweeping skirts and black sheepskin hat. 
You would wonder how the exalted spirit can 
be sustained, yet with each new parade the 
crowds grow larger. 

Last week I looked up Fifth Avenue, and 
as far as the eye could see stretched a field of 
bayonets, swaying to the rhythm of a march, 
like wheat blown by the wind. 

This week it was a vision of great mercy. 
Red Cross nurses paraded — thousands of 
them. The whiteness of their uniforms was a 
strange contrast to the earth-brown of the men 
who had marched before. I never saw so 
many women with kindly eyes. 

69 



70 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

All these parades have been going south — 
toward trains and ferries and camps and 
troopships. As they pass I close my eyes and 
dream for an instant that they are marching 
north, up that avenue — toward home. 



Quebec 
Dear Molly, 

I am writing on Dufferin Terrace, the 
broad esplanade that looks out over the St. 
Lawrence and the houses huddled at the foot 
of the hill. From the citadel above comes the 
occasional rant of bugles and the "pock" of 
guns at target practise. A Scottish regiment 
is barracked there. I fell in with a group of 
the men yesterday. They have not yet been 
across, and barracks life is beginning to get 
on their nerves. 

"Better be fightin' than loafm'," one burly 
Scot remarked. 

"Loafing is safer," I suggested. 

"Yes, but what difference does it make?" he 
answered. "You've got to go out some way, 
sometime. Lots of 'em have." 

It sounded strangely like fatalism, yet the 
more I thought of it, the more I see that fatal- 
ism is the wrong word. 

We hear a lot about soldiers being fatalists, 
71 



72 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

not caring how they die because they have to 
die sometime. It paints a picture of men 
cruel and unbelieving, scornful of the ends of 
living. 

This may have been true of previous wars; 
certainly it was true of some soldiers in the 
Russian and Japanese armies. But the Russo- 
Japanese War was a picayune game of capi- 
talists righting for commercial control over 
territory. The war we are in is the biggest 
event the world has ever seen; it is being 
fought for the maintenance of the fundamen- 
tal ideals of civilization. The philosophy be- 
hind it is bewildering, the heroism it has called 
forth is amazing, the destruction it has occa- 
sioned appalls even the most hardened. Men 
who go into it are engulfed in a thing so 
supremely bigger than themselves that per- 
sonal safety, personal considerations, personal 
interests are entirely dwarfed and over- 
whelmed. They lose identity in the vastness 
of the cause they serve. One man writing 
from the trenches has put it: "We have no 
business worries, everything we do is under or- 
ders, and we have the perpetual sense of mak- 
ing our infinitesimal contribution to the biggest 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 73 

and most unselfish sacrifice that the world has 
seen up to date." 

Perhaps you have felt this at times — how 
insignificant you are, how entirely submissive 
you become in the presence of some great nat- 
ural phenomenon — a storm at sea, a terrific 
clap of thunder, the roar of Niagara, the in- 
comprehensible and silent immensity of the 
Grand Canyon. Your physical being may 
stiffen, but at heart you are resigned, humbled, 
emptied of self. You become obedient to a 
will not your own. Something of that same 
spirit makes the soldier unafraid to die. 

It is the psychology of heroism that in the 
face of inexorable duty man loses the recollec- 
tion of self and acquires a contempt of fear. 
The instinct of self-preservation fails to func- 
tion once a man is flooded with the vastness of 
his purpose. 

The immediate purpose of battle, the pur- 
poses the soldier feels at the time, is to kill his 
enemies — as many of them as he can. Don't 
make any mistake about that. Don't think 
that the soldiers of France or England or Can- 
ada bother their heads about autocracy or de- 
mocracy when they go over the top. They are 



74 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

fighting for very life itself — theirs and ours. 
They are glad to give their lives if, by the sac- 
rifice, they can avenge the brutal death of their 
comrades and the filthy and diabolical outrages 
committed upon their women, their children, 
and their homes. 

But back of this hate looms the gigantic fig- 
ure of the ideal, an ideal bigger than any man 
and the dreams of any man. 

From a war against invasion has developed 
a war against tyranny. We are fighting as 
much for the foe as for ourselves. Your son is 
offering his life to-day that German boys a 
century from now will not be driven forth to 
certain death by a military machine. "This 
war must not be sterile," said Alfred Cazalis. 
"From all these deaths there must burst forth 
new life for mankind." 

True, hundreds of men do not comprehend 
the vastness of the ideals for which they are 
fighting. What overwhelms them is the im- 
mediate clash of arms symbolizing the call to 
duty and sacrifice in defense of these ideals. 

That is what overwhelmed my Kiltie friend 
of Dufferin Terrace. There was a deep and 
sober thought behind his apparent cynicism 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 75 

about going out "sometime, somewhere." 
What he really meant was that living can be- 
come inconsequential when there is something 
bigger to die for. 



Quebec 
Dear Molly, 

They were of that caste one sees creeping 
out of big office buildings at dawn — scrub- 
women; oldish, with patched clothes, trailing 
skirts, hats tilted over one eye, and hands 
gnarled from a lifetime in the suds. 

"I wish to God my own was on her!" one 
said. 

"I wish to God my own was on her, too," 
the other replied. 

"Her" was a boat that lay beside the wharf. 
She wore white with a broad green girdle below 
her guard rail and huge red crosses, two to a 
side and one in electric lights swung between 
her funnels. Her rails were manned with 
khaki — earth-brown men, with here and there 
the blue of a nurse's uniform and the white 
flutter of her veil as the wind played with it. 

There were eight hundred of them, wounded, 
broken, parts of men. But as the hawser slid 
down over the wharf bits they raised a cheer 
that ricocheted for blocks along the waterfront. 

76 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 77 

These eight hundred had been over there, 
done their bit, and were being sent home. A 
few months hence they would be civilians 
again, going about their various duties through 
the Canadian streets, with naught to mark 
them save a service button on their coat, that 
limp, that missing limb, those scars. To-day 
they were taking their first step back to the old 
life. They hobbled down the gangplank, 
sniffed the air, and passed through the gate 
into the city. 

It isn't the going over there that's so hard, 
they say, but the coming back. When you 
part, every one else is parting — that makes it 
easier. When you come back there are those 
who wish to God their own were on her — and 
are not and never can be. 

They were a quiet crew, despite their cheers. 
They asked for cigarettes and telegraph blanks 
— that was the extent of their desires. They 
had little to say about themselves, for such men 
are "purged of pride"; and but little to say 
about the men who would not return. They 
were changed. They had "conquered self for 
the sake of an ideal"; they were reborn men. 
You could see it in the glint of the eye, the 



78 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

carriage of the head, the way they looked at 
you. 

Yes, we were all changed — even the crones. 

"I wish to God my own was on her!" the one 
kept moaning. 

"Cheero, dearie!" the other said. "Remem- 
ber, dearie, we've got to keep the home fires 
burnin'." 



Quebec 
Dearest Molly, 

The three of them are sitting on a sofa in the 
opposite corner of the lounge. His mother 
and father came yesterday — a tall, raw-boned, 
sallow man with a scrawny neck, a pronounced 
Adam's apple and a fringy mustache; and a 
round-faced, red-cheeked, dumpy little woman 
in her best clothes. They are evidently from 
the country, and have come up to meet him 
and are staying at this big, expensive hotel so 
that he can have every possible comfort. 

He arrived to-day in the Red Cross ship. 
His left arm is gone. 

When I passed him a moment ago, I noticed 
how young he was. The down is still on his 
cheeks although he stands over six feet. He is 
fair haired and blue eyed ; and his color is rosy. 
He cannot be more than twenty. 

They have been sitting there for half an 
hour, now. They do not say much. 

The mother looks as though she had been 

weeping inside — weeping without tears. She 

79 



80 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

busies herself with little attentions for him — 
fetches him a match, gets him a paper; a mo- 
ment ago she bought him a bar of chocolate. 
She cannot sit still, although she is trying very 
hard to be cheerful. She laughs, but the smile 
dies off the corner of her mouth. Now and 
then she steals a glance up at him, and looks 
away quickly. She seems to be trying to think 
of things to do to please him, things she is 
going to do in the days when they get back 
home — pies and cakes, and comfortable chairs 
in the sun, and clean, snow-white sheets on the 
bed, and soft pillows. 

His father sits very still and says scarcely 
anything. Now and then he tugs at his fringy 
mustache, and his Adam's apple bobs convul- 
sively. He is on the side of the missing arm. 
He tries not to see it, but leans back against the 
cushions occasionally, and furtively glances up 
at the boy's profile. I cannot tell what he is 
thinking. He seems dulled by an amazement 
of inarticulate pride. 

Between them the boy sits very straight and 
unbending. He nibbles at the chocolate and 
smiles down occasionally at his mother. Most 
of the time, though, he looks straight before 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 81 

him, and his glance penetrates time and space. 

I would not presume to say what he is think- 
ing. I only know that his face to-day is not 
the face of the lad who left home for the serv- 
ice three years ago. Faces like that do not 
grow on farms. It is beautiful beyond words, 
tender, strong and glistening. The light that 
glows from it is transcendent, glorified. He 
has looked on the Thing which ever after makes 
a man homesick in his home, unable to rest on 
earth again. There is a great desire in it, the 
light of a vast comprehension, the radiant fire 
of a consuming love. 

I wonder if his mother and father guess what 
that look means! 



En route to Montreal 
Dear Molly, 

Here's a new brand of pro-Germanism. It 
came from a stranger — evidently a Jewish- 
American — who drifted into the smoking-car 
this morning. 

"Well, after all," he said deprecatingly, "we. 
Americans aren't really interested in this war. 
We're in it now and we've got to see it through, 
but the general feeling isn't strong and 
united." 

When I got through with him he ate his 
words. 

For only last week on my way up here I 
passed through a number of small towns and 
the sort of feeling I discovered, even in the 
most out-of -way village, was a burning, ardent 
patriotism. 

There was Montague, for instance, where I 
put up over night. Montague has no more 
than two hundred souls all told, most of them 
old folks and little children, for the young men 
go to the cities as soon as they reach an earning 

82 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 83 

age. That accounts for the fact that, when the 
call came, Montague had but one boy to give — 
Jim, the hostler at the hotel. 

Jim didn't want to go. He had been at that 
job for eight years and had not gone farther 
away from the town than a radius of ten miles. 
He liked his work, he was steady, faithful, 
kind. He loved the horses and used to talk to 
them in his own peculiar brand of Yankee dia- 
lect. No, war didn't attract him at all. 

Then the boss and he had a quiet session to- 
gether in some corner of the barn, and from 
that moment on Jim flamed with ardor for the 
service. He is drilling at a camp down South 
now, and the old folks in town speak of him as 
a hero. A rumor ran through the town last 
Sunday night that Jim had leave of absence for 
a couple of days and might be back — soldier 
clothes and all. Half the people sat up till 
midnight waiting for him. But something 
happened and he could not get there. They 
spoke of it in tones of genuine regret. 

For to the natives of Montague Jim is more 
than a common soldier. He is their personal 
representative at the front, their sole contribu- 
tion, their link with the terrible things going on 



84 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

over there. They speak of the war in terms of 
Jim ; they eat no beef two days a week because 
of Jim; they bake less wheat bread and more 
corn bread because of Jim; they knit hour by 
hour and snip lint and roll bandages because 
Jim has gone to the front. 

The natives of Montague do not consider 
Jim a symbol, but a symbol Jim is, neverthe- 
less, just as to you Harry is a symbol and to 
my neighbor Walton Al is a symbol. 

We live our lives in symbols and for symbols 
we make our sacrifices — for a bit of bunting, 
for a uniform, for a sign set in the sky. The 
great ideals of this war are too gigantic for us 
to grasp in their entirety. In the white heat 
of the world's fury we cannot see the crucible 
that holds our precious aspirations. We can 
only see, looming large before us, the figures of 
the men who tend that furnace. They are our 
boys. The war means them. For them we 
are a united people, and for them we will make 
our sacrifices. We will eat less, we will spend 
less, we will do without, that added strength 
may be given them. 

Our unity lies in our abiding interest in the 
symbols that represent us and our cause. 



Montreal 
Dear Molly, 

The thing that amazes me about these re- 
turned Canadian soldiers is their infinite supe- 
riority to the rest of the people. Not that 
they show it, not that they speak it, but that 
they are. 

In the presence of a common soldier with the 
gold braid of a wound on his arm I feel pecul- 
iarly humbled. I owe so much to him. He 
has been fighting for three years to keep our 
homes safe. We have only just discovered 
that they were in danger. 



85 



Montreal 
Dear Molly, 

This morning I drifted into a church. I had 
not intended going, because it was so warm and 
sunny outside, but the sound of an organ 
caught my ear and I went in. 

I expected a congregation crowded with 
black, for this city has paid a heavy toll of lives 
in the recent British advances. The women 
wore anything but black. Later in the day I 
mentioned it to my host. 

"No, we aren't wearing mourning, by com- 
mon consent. Too many of us have lost our 
dear ones to mourn, and the work ahead is too 
gigantic for us to stop and think about the con- 
ventions of dress." 

It sounded a bit cruel at first, but I saw 
what it meant. These Canadian women have 
thrown everything into the crucible of the war 
— their husbands, their sons, their brothers, 
their pride and vanities, their hopes and dreams 
— even their sorrows. It takes great faith to 
do that, Molly dear, and greater fortitude to 

86 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 87 

go on doing it when the end is nowhere in sight. 
Of you American mothers the same price will 
be exacted. In that day I know you will all 
be as brave. 

Not long ago I sat with a mother whose son 
has gone to France with our army. She had 
seven children, and she brought up each of 
them according to his capacities. One adopted 
the army as his profession, and he has been in 
it now four years. When the order came to 
go abroad he wrote his mother, "I am going to 
France. I may never come back. But with 
that I am satisfied. I know this is exactly the 
sort of thing you hoped I would do if the 
chance came." 

"And it is," she said. "I raised him to be a 
soldier. He is my youngest, and he always 
wanted to be a soldier, so I helped him all I 
could to be a good one. If he had failed now, 
I would consider that I had failed as a mother. 
I would be ashamed, not because of his weak- 
ness, but because of mine." 

She knows little of the world, this mother, 
little of books and dress and the things most of 
us take pleasure in. Her world is her children. 
She has lived for them alone, and her devotion 



88 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

encompasses them. Her reward is their suc- 
cess — the attainment of the men and women 
she dreamed they would be. She is but one of 
the million mothers in America to-day who 
have sent their sons forth to battle, but to me 
she is the mother of America. 

I take her frail hands and feel in them the 
strength of myriad sons and daughters. I 
look into her eyes and behold the rapturous 
triumph of complete surrender. I touch her 
lips and am made clean and noble and strong. 

The strength of America is the vitality of 
her energizing love. Among shifting illusions, 
in the strife and greed and lust and empty 
mirth of life, above the smoke and wrack of 
battle, in the midst of foes, this abides — the 
vision of her abundant sacrifice. She who 
gladly would have lost her life that life be 
found, renewed, reborn, surrenders it once 
more in her sons. And in their going forth she 
has given them, to treasure everlastingly, the 
image of all that they might be. 



Toronto 
Dear Molly, 

I am in a strange household. It is a big 
country place outside of Toronto — an estate, 
in fact, and save for the host and his wife I 
am the only man in mufti here. All the others, 

fifty of them, are officers . Mr. turned 

over his place as a recuperation camp to the 

government. He and Mrs. are living in 

the lodge. I have a cot in what used to be a 
hostler's room. The big house is fitted out 
with all modern facilities for the care of the 
wounded, and both these good people spend all 
their time helping the doctors and nurses look 
after the men. They are all fine chaps. Some 
of them will return to the service, but several 
of them will never be able to do much except 
sit about in the sun until the Night comes 
down« 

One of these chaps has quite won my heart. 
He is a university man, was specializing in law 
when the war broke out. He was gassed and 

89 



90 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

lost an arm at Mons. But he's plucky, and 
plans to go on with law when he's better. 

Yesterday I sat by his chair and he showed 
me a collection of addresses to soldiers that he 
was making. They were reports from papers, 
scraps of translation, and bits of diaries record- 
ing what commanders had said to their men as 
they went into battle. 

I am copying out three of them for you. 
Perhaps you might like to send them on to 
Harry. 

The first is the address given his men of the 
Expeditionary Force by Field Marshal Kitch- 
ener. The men were told to keep it in their 
active service paybook which they always 
carry. It goes as follows : 

You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King, to 
help our French comrades against the invasion of a com- 
mon enemy. 

You have to perform a task which will need your cour- 
age, your energy and your patience. 

Remember that the honor of the British army depends 
on your individual conduct. 

It will be your duty not only to set an example of 
discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to 
maintain the most friendly relations with those whom 
you are helping in this struggle. 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 91 

The operations in which you will be engaged will for 
the most part take place in a friendly country, and you 
can do your country no better service than in showing 
yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of 
the British soldier by being invariably courteous, consid- 
erate and kind. 

Never do anything likely to injure or destroy prop- 
erty, and always look upon rioting as a disgraceful act. 

You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted. 
Your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. 

Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound, 
so keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. 

In this new experience you may find temptation both 
in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temp- 
tations, and while treating all women with perfect cour- 
tesy you should avoid any intimacy. 

Do your duty bravely. Fear God and honor the King. 

Another was the address made by a Japa- 
nese officer to his men just before they went 
into a charge. It is one of the noblest utter- 
ances I know: 

Soldiers: Some of us will not be so fortunate as to 
have the honor of giving our lives for our country to- 
night, and we must endeavor not to give them unneces- 
sarily, as they may be wanted for another occasion. 

The strangest of all was an order once issued 
to the Russian Army by General Dragomiroff 
of St. Petersburg. It is called "The Soldier's 



92 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

Memento," a strange mixture of piety and 
practical advice. It sheds a light on the Rus- 
sian Army that used to be and the deep fire of 
religion that drove its men to Titanic sacri- 
fices: 

The soldier is Christ's warrior. 

Do not think of yourself, think of your comrades. 
Perish if necessary, but save your comrades. 

Under fire, scatter yourselves. March in groups under 
attack, for one must strike with the fist, not with fingers 
— foot helps foot, hand strengthens hand. 

One misfortune is no misfortune, two misfortunes are 
only half a misfortune. Breaking the ranks, that is mis- 
fortune ! 

Only he is conquered who is afraid. 

Strike; do not ward off blows. If your bayonet 
breaks, strike with the butt-end ; if that breaks, use your 
fists; when your fists are bleeding, use your teeth. One 
only really fights when fighting to the death. 

In the battle the soldier is sentinel; do not let your 
weapon fall from your hands, even in death. 

Take aim for each shot: shooting right and left only 
amuses the devil. 

Be careful with the cartridges, for if you shoot at 
distance, you will find an empty case when you ought to 
have a full one. For a real soldier thirty cartridges 
would suffice in the hottest fight. Pick up the cartridges 
of the wounded and dead. 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 93 

God protects the brave. 

The good soldier has no sides or back — the front is 
always to the enemy. 

Always face cavalry — let it come to 200 paces, fire, 
fix bayonets, stand firm. 

In war you will neither eat nor sleep your fill; you 
will be worn out. That is war, and it is a difficult trade 
even for a soldier; but it is terrible for a soft soldier. 
But if it is hard for you, it is no better for the enemy. 
You see only your own trouble, not his; all the same it 
is there. So do not be discouraged. You will conquer! 
"He who perseveres to the end shall be saved." 

Victory is not gained by one blow. Sometimes you 
will not succeed at the second or third — attack a fourth 
time, and more often if necessary, until you have attained 
your end. 

He who leaves the ranks during a fight to help the 
wounded is a bad soldier and not a man of feeling. His 
comrades are not dear to him, but his skin is. Beat the 
enemy and all will be well, the wounded as well as the 
whole. 

Never leave your place in a march. One minute, and 
you are 120 steps behind. March gaily. 

Rest is not even for all at bivouac. Some sleep, some 
watch. 

If you are in command, keep your men together 
solidly ; give them reasonable orders, and do not command 
them as you would a brute. Begin by saying what they 
must do, so that every man will know where and why he 
goes. 



94 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

Die for your faith, for your Tsar, for Russia; the 
Church will pray for the dead, and also for those who 
will live to get honor and glory. 

Never ill-treat the inhabitant; he will supply your 
bread. The soldier is no brigand. 

Let your clothing and weapons always be in order. 
Take care of your gun, your cartridges, your" biscuit and 
your legs as if they were your eyes. Wrap your feet 
well in linen, and rub them with fat: it is good. 

The soldier must be strong, brave, firm, just and pious. 
May God grant him the victory ! 

Heroes, God leads you. He is your General! 



Toronto 
Dear, dear Molly, 

I am too busy to write much of a letter. 
Haven't the heart for it either. One of our 
men died last night — a lad of twenty-five who 
won the D.S.O. at Loos. He was an orphan, 
thank God, and we are the only ones to whom 
his going means much. He was wounded 
three times, and each time he went back. 
Then the Bodies gassed him. 

Three years ago he was a station agent at 
some little town on the C. P. K. He started 
in as a private and worked his way up to a 
commission by sheer bravery. It had made a 
gentleman of him. He told me so himself — 
gave him wider visions and bigger thoughts. 

He believed he was getting better and he 
looked forward to his life ahead like a child 
on the night before Christmas — impatient, 
eager, anxious, fearful with the very anticipa- 
tion of it. Then suddenly he took a turn for 
the worse, and to-night he went out. 

I know now that a man can lose the whole 
world and gain his soul. 

95 



On the way home 
Dear Molly, 

You have heard George and me speak of 
Barker, Sidney Barker? He was with us in 
college, in the class below. A whole-hearted 
sort of chap, with a twinkle in his eye. He 
used to have a fine voice too, and was in great 
demand at college affairs. 

I haven't seen Sid for fifteen years. This 
morning as I was sitting in the chair car he 
came in. Same old boy! He slapped me on 
the back and asked if I was making money 
in the writing game. I retaliated with the 
same question about automobiles. 

"Money in automobiles? Why, I haven't 
made a cent of money for the past month. 
Not a sou markee!" 

"The war hit you?" I asked. 

"Well, ah, not the way you mean." He set 
down his bag and shoved his hat on the back 
of his head. "Come on in the smoker. I've 
two of the rottenest cigars you ever tasted. 
Friend gave 'em to me." 

They turned out to be the sort that bank 

96 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 97 

directors smoke at meetings, but that is neither 
here nor there. Between puffs he told me the 
story of the past few months. 

For the last ten years he has been in the 
automobile business, making money hand over 
fist. He had a big house and entertained a 
lot. His boy — the only child — was up at col- 
lege and was graduated this June. The first 
day out of college he joined the marines and 
went across with Pershing. Just a private. 

He did it with his father's consent. Barker 
always was a big man. 

But as the days went on, Barker realized 
that giving his son to the cause was not enough. 
He wanted to give himself. 

He and Mrs. Barker talked it over, laid their 
plans, and before the week was out they were 
ready to throw up their own interests and join 
the big game. He sold out his business, sold 
his house and most of the furniture, gave half 
of the proceeds to the Red Cross, and then 
offered his services to the Y. M. C. A. 

When they asked him what he thought he 
could do, he said he could sing. Imagine it! 
A millionaire, a big executive, giving that as 
his talent! 



98 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

Well, they took him at his word. He could 
sing. What's more he could get along with 
men. The next thing he knew he was ordered 
to a cantonment as a song leader. 

To-day Mrs. Barker has two rooms in a lit- 
tle country hotel in a town near the canton- 
ment and Barker sleeps in a bunk in the back 
room of a Y. M. C. A. building. 

"And d'you know, boy," he said, laying his 
hand on my arm, "it's taken ten years off our 
lives. We're absolutely wrapped up in it. 
We've never been so well and so happy. The 
car's down there. The Missus has it most of 
the time, because I'd rather hoof it. She 
comes over every day and sees that I change 
my shirt, and the rest of the time she's play- 
ing around with the officers' wives and knit- 
ting. Oh, she's a great little knitter!" 

"What do you do?" I asked. 

"Well, I hang around the building, help 
sweep it out in the morning, take my turn back 
of the counter, talk to the fellows who look 
lonely — and a lot of 'em did at first — work 
the picture machine and lead the singing. We 
sing almost every night — all the old college 
stuff and a lot of new songs besides. D'you 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 99 

remember 'The Bells of Hell'? We call that 
'Hymn No. 9.' You ought to hear 'em sing 
it!" And he went off into a great guffaw. 

"Yes, sir, I'm up at six every morning, eat 
three square meals a day, walk about ten miles, 
and when nine o'clock comes, believe me, I'm 
ready for the hay!" 

I only wish he could have been with me 
longer. But he had to stop off at Buffalo. 
He was going to "hold up" a millionaire for 
"fifty thou." 

And to think this was the Barker I used to 
paddle in his freshman days! 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear Molly, 

Home again, and off to-morrow. Between 
Barker and Canada, the war has got under my 
hide. It is silly to work at a desk any longer. 
To-morrow I go to the cantonment where 
Barker is. If they can find a place for me, I'll 
take it. I don't care what it is. 

Meantime, here is your letter of the 17th 
awaiting me when I come home. 

I knew you would understand my letter 
about the mothers of America. I often think 
of George these days, too. Dear fellow, how 
proud he would have been of Harry! 

Perhaps it is only right that you mothers 
should have all our sympathy, but the fathers 
of America are also carrying a burden in their 
hearts these days. Don't forget that. You 
women can shake off your loneliness and be- 
wilderment by knitting sweaters and doing 
Red Cross work, but a man can only go on 
at the same old job and give every possible 

cent to the cause. 

100 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 101 

I don't suppose you mothers could be im- 
proved much, yet you are not the only ones. 
The going of their sons has worked a great 
transformation among fathers. They look 
ahead, just as you look ahead, fearful of the 
outcome. The man child who bears their 
name is at the front. Here is pride for you! 
Here is also dread and anxiety and speechless 
horror. 

For a man looks on a son as an artist looks 
on the statue or the painting that his hands 
have created. He is the embodiment of his 
dreams, his wealth, his playmate, his scholar, 
his tutor, his available future. The mistakes 
he has made he shall rectify in his boy. The 
weaknesses to which he has succumbed, his boy 
shall conquer. To a father his son is his sec- 
ond chance, his beginning again, his hope of 
eternal salvation. So long as he has that boy 
he is immeasurably rich and his future is safe. 
When he loses him, he loses his immortality 
in the flesh. 

Christopher Morley has put this feeling ex- 
actly in a little poem : 

There is a secret laughter 
That often comes to me, 



102 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

And though I go about my work 
As humble as can be, 
There is no prince or prelate 

I envy — no, not one. 
No evil can befall me — 

By God, I have a son ! 

Fathers feel more proprietary about their 
boys than mothers do. That perhaps accounts 
for the fact that some fathers do not get 
along with their sons; to youth ownership is 
a galling yoke. But that very sense of own- 
ership makes the loss of a son all the harder 
to bear. 

Create an image after your own fashion. 
Mold it to the perfection of your dreams . . . 
Then send it forth, fling it away . . . Look 
ahead to thwarted years, to dreams that never 
can come true. Live on and work on with 
nothing more to sustain you than the bitter 
consolation that in the hour of trial he did not 
fail. . . . 

My God, Molly, is it any wonder men have 
stopped drinking? 



Camp 

Dear old Molly, 

Three months ago this was a farm. A little 
whitewashed stone farmhouse stood near the 
road with its red barns and cow sheds on the 
hill behind. Before it, to a wood a mile or 
more away, stretched the fields, with corn in 
tassel and rustling wheat and apples greening 
on the bough. 

To-day seven hundred buildings stand there 
—barracks and store sheds and artillery sta- 
bles and power stations and water towers and 
the myriad mushroom shacks of construction 
work. Macadam roads circle the camp and 
cut through it. Down toward the wood is a 
huge drill ground with the corn stubble still 
standing. The corn shocks now hang from 
stanchions in grewsome rows against the sky, 
like murderers on a gallows tree; and eight 
hours a day men rush at them with bayonets 
and stab into the heart where the golden ears 
were. 

Stand wherever you are, and on all sides are 

103 



104 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

men drilling — in company streets, before bar- 
racks, in corners of the fields, along the great 
macadam highways. They are eternally 
marching, wheeling around, counting off. In 
a few weeks these thousands of men will move 
and act as one. When the hour of attack 
comes they will respond subconsciously to 
commands, think about them as little as you 
and I do about breathing and walking. 

The purpose of military drill is to reduce 
men to a common factor. First they receive 
the uniform, which molds them into a stand- 
ardized being; then they are drilled to stand- 
ardized actions. In the hour of battle the 
commander will know exactly what his men 
will do. Without this endless drilling they 
would be nothing more than a uniformed mob 
— cannon fodder at best. 

These men were all taken by the selective 
draft — plucked out of jobs, from family 
hearths, off the streets. They represent all 
walks of life, kinds of work and professions, 
social and educational classes. The men here 
and those in the fifteen other cantonments to- 
tal much over a million. Their transfer from 
civil life was effected by the agency of public 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 105 

opinion speaking through the enactment of 
Congress. In no country in the world has 
such a universal and democratic movement 
ever taken place. Objection to it was negligi- 
ble. Most of the men, once they had broken 
off the old ties, were keen for the life. They 
are better fed, live more regular and normal 
lives, and consequently are in better health 
than they ever were before. All this, Molly, is 
the will of the people. 

If you want to see democracy in the work- 
ing, visit a cantonment. Here you see the 
very practical side of our nation. And that 
practical side is this: that in a democracy we 
are all equal shareholders. The country's 
prosperity is our prosperity, its danger is our 
danger. And as we share its prosperity, so 
must we share its evil times and be willing to 
defend it against their repetition. 

America will have a million better citizens 
in a few weeks. For here, as nowhere else, a 
great amalgamation is taking place. In these 
sixteen cantonments scattered over the coun- 
try we have set up our melting-pot, and the 
fire that burns under it is the ardor of patri- 
otism. 



106 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

Although I hate the destruction of war, as 
every just man should, I know that this war 
has come to us as our great spiritual oppor- 
tunity. Kipling has put it in a verse: 

Then praise the Lord Most High 
Whose strength has saved us whole; 
Who bade us choose that flesh should die, 
And not the living soul. 

We have held our liberties too lightly. We 
have taken our freedom as a matter of course. 
Now comes the test. Do we care enough for 
liberty to defend it? Is it so sacred to us 
that without it life is not worth the living? 

This time a year ago these were banal ques- 
tions, the rubber-stamp phrases of bombastic 
Fourth of July orators. Suddenly they as- 
sume reality and become a live thing. 

To the 30,000 men in this camp the mainte- 
nance of the ideal of American freedom is ab- 
solutely vital. It is their business to know 
and to prevent it, just as a few weeks ago it 
was their business to earn bread and clothes 
and shelter. No discipline is too great if that 
is the end. 

And these men are going to the work with 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 107 

a song on their lips. They are being trained 
to face death light-heartedly, as befits gentle- 
men. Nightly for a week now I have heard 
them in the Y. M. C. A. halls, crowded on 
the benches, singing for dear life. Last night 
three thousand of them packed the big audito- 
rium. And what do you think was their fa- 
vorite? A fine, rollicking ballad with the re- 
frain: 

God help Kaiser Bill ! 

They sang it over and over. They stamped 
their feet to it. They waved their arms. But 
from a rollick it became a solemn event ; from 
a street ballad a hymn of heroes, a prayer of 
dedication. 

God help Kaiser Bill ! 

I hope He does. I hope He helps him see 
the light before it is too late. For, as the other 
song that these men sing goes, 

We won't come back till it's over Over There! 



Camp 

Dear Sis, 

What do I do down here? 

I play ragtime. I play it for an hour every 
night, between seven and eight. And you 
ought to hear me ! Barker stands on the plat- 
form and leads the singing. I bang the box. 
The boys do the rest. 

Do you know, I never played ragtime be- 
fore in my life, and as for jazzing into double 
syncopation, it was an unknown world! For 
the past five years I have been mooning around 
with Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff and 
Dubussy, playing the proper things, and think- 
ing I was getting all there was to be had out 
of music. Just as if music were only for the 
cultured and the highbrow ! 

Down here we have music for the mob, and 
I'm beginning to see that .the men who wrote 
"Keep the Home Fires Burning" and "Over 
There" have done more for the people than all 
the Tchaikovsky's in the world. It's the dif- 

108 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 109 

ference between riding in a Rolls Royce and 
riding in a Ford. And I choose the Ford 
every time now. 



Camp 

Dear Molly, 

Yes, I have changed, and I'm not ashamed 
to acknowledge it. 

I used to look on the war intellectually, dis- 
passionately. To-day it is a real menace to 
me. And the sooner we can spread the fear 
of this menace throughout America, the sooner 
we will be able to crush it. 

America is not awake to what it faces. We 
haven't got past the flag-waving stage. Wait 
until our papers are filled with casualty lists. 
Wait until you read, with each breakfast, the 
names of the men you knew who have made 
the supreme sacrifice. Wait until our boys 
crawl back to tell us the things that actually 
happen. We dare not print them in our 
papers. We can only hear them from men 
who have seen them committed. 

What does it mean to American mothers 

that scores of hospitals in France hold their 

hideous quota of outraged women, insane or 

on the verge of insanity, pleading for the re- 

110 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 111 

lease of death? Does the awful collapse of 
the morale of European womanhood mean 
anything to you? Do crucified, maimed, 
syphilitic children mean anything to you? 

You want to know what you can do beside 
Red Cross work and buying Liberty Bonds. 
You can do this : You can go among the men 
and women of your town and awake them to 
the perils of America and the cause for which 
we are fighting. 

This war has only started. Tell them that. 
Tell them that no sentimental twaddle will 
do these days, that they must all be in this 
war, and in it to their utmost. Grim deter- 
mination. That's what we want! Realiza- 
tion that Germany is winning. That's what 
we want! Don't look on German atrocities 
as idle gossip. They are true, and you have 
heard only the least of them. Don't think 
that we are winning. Look at the map of 
Europe and see how much we are winning. 

There's your work, Molly. Start in your 
own town, and awake the men and women 
there to the grave perils that confront us. 



Camp = 

Dear Molly, 

Here is the real thing. 

It happens every night on the parade 
ground. 

The field is a mile each way. For a back- 
ground stand the trees, glorious in the red 
and bronze of their autumn foliage. The sky- 
line blurs off to nothingness in the night mist. 
A darkening sky settles down fast to the west- 
ward, shot with shafts of red and gray and 
salmon. The welter of barracks softens, ages, 
dims in the dusk. 

The men march on the parade grounds — 
three thousand or more of them. They come 
from all directions in snaking columns of fours, 
and stretch from one end of the field to the 
other. The ends are lost in the distance. 
Far down the field, a speck against the stub- 
ble, stands the colonel. The little group be- 
hind him is the band. The men move in a 
sweeping rhythm, their lines double, extend. 
Hands swing in unison. Feet scuffle to- 
gether and grow still. 

112 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 113 

Of a sudden an appalling silence. Nature 
was never so hushed. You catch at your 
breath. Something unseen grips you, makes 
you rigid. The brown lines, too, are rigid. 
The sky darkens ominously. It portends a 
great and solemn event. 

Then the first notes of "The Star Spangled 
Banner." 

Three thousand hands spring to salute. 
Three thousand faces turn toward a bit of 
bunting slowly fluttering down the dusk wind. 
A soldier reaches out to catch it in his arms. 

The band ceases . . . Silence again. 

A sudden command, and rank on rank the 
men disappear into the dark. 

I have often heard soldiers speak of the flag. 
They talk about it reverently, with tender rec- 
ollection, as a man talks about his mother. 
Somehow, I used to think them a bit senti- 
mental, probably cantish. I felt that their 
fine words were merely the stereotyped phrases 
of men drilled to say such things. I know 
better now. It is a live thing to them, a real 
presence — the presence of America and all that 
she has been and will be. 

A bit of bunting sliding down a pole . . . 



114 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

Three thousand men at salute . . . They call 
the ceremony "Retreat." I think of it as 
worship. 

For to army men this nightly lowering of the 
flag is an act of supreme worship. They take 
it down with honor, for with honor it was 
placed there. They receive it tenderly, be- 
cause they love it. In its presence they are 
reverent because to it they present the offer- 
ing of their opportunities, their hopes, even 
their very existence. 

Crusaders battling to defend the Sacrament 
. . . Soldiers to defend the flag, fighting for a 
Real Presence. 

And in their fighting lies the better part of 
worship. For theirs is worship that presup- 
poses action, service, sacrifice. Here nightly 
men dedicate their lives. 

Remember that whenever you see the flag. 
Remember the men who have died for it and 
will die. Remember these men standing in 
the dusk, rigid with reverence. 



"The Mill," Silvermine 
Dear old Sis, 

They've given me three days' leave of ab- 
sence. Things up here at The Mill needed at- 
tending to, and I am hustling to get them all 
arranged by Monday night. So this is just a 
note to tell you of an incident. 

Yesterday as I was working out on the 
"perch" I heard footsteps on the stairs. Mr. 
Walton was coming up. He was in his Sun- 
day blacks. I wondered what it could mean. 

As he came up I saw that his face was tense. 
He carried a paper in his hand. When he 
reached the top he dropped into a chair and 
looked across at me. 

"Well, Al's gone." 

He handed me the paper. 

Struck by a shell a week ago while moving 
up ammunition. 

For a moment neither of us said anything, 
although we looked each other face to face. 

"I would to God that I could . . ." 

115 



116 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

He fell back in his chair, the oath unfinished 
on his lips. 

We sat together a long time silent. Finally 
he got up, walked to the railing and looked 
through the branches to the wide reaches of 
the river beyond. 

"Well, here's me and the Missus . . . And 
there's Al — in France." 

As I laid my hand on the old man's shoulder 
he nodded his head slowly, and then went down 
the stairs. 



Back in Camp 
Dear Molly, 

The passage you wanted is from "The Spi- 
ral Way" by John Cordelier. 

"Nothing shall explain the mystery of Love and Pain 
but a sharing of it. Nothing shall initiate us into the 
Life of God, which is our peace, if we turn from the 
cleaving sword and outstretched arms that make up the 
everlasting mercy of the Cross." 



117 



Camp 

Dear Molly Mine, 

The going of Al Walton has made these 
thousands of lads around here seem doubly 
precious to me. Not that Al Walton meant 
anything personal to me, or that these lads 
would under other circumstances, save as hu- 
man beings, American-born. I find myself 
suddenly confronted with the realization that 
these boys and those who have already fallen 
have made the ordinary manner of dying a 
sordid end. 

Somewhere Dr. Johnson said that it was a 
sad sight for a man to lie down and die. For 
most of us death is a pitiful struggle. We 
wear out, peter out, abuse to death our God- 
given potentialities. We fight to hold the 
mastery over things not worth the holding — a 
world-worn carcass, a broken will, a disillu- 
sioned faith, a rusty, old, sin-eaten conscience. 

How much more do these lads give up! — 
A strong body, an unsullied mind, a young 
faith, a will to conquer. That is what makes 

118 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 119 

their dying so valuable. They offer for the 
accomplishment of an ideal what you and I 
can never offer — the things we have long since 
lost. 

I would not say that men go into battle 
deliberately to die, but I do know that they 
are willing to die, to suffer the exquisite agony 
of wounds, if by that sacrifice their purpose be 
gained. 

There's the word! A soldier approaches 
death "face-fronted, standing up." Flooded 
with the grim necessity for victory, he walks 
to it open-eyed and willing. He dies with a 
purpose. 

And the more I see of life and men, the more 
I envy him his opportunities. 

It is easy enough for me, I know, to sit here 
and write on glibly about death being only a 
bend in the road of life, the opening of a 
bolted door. But these things it must be if 
my faith is not vain. More, I am sure that 
the way a man enters that door will have much 
to do with his life beyond it — whether he 
creeps in because he can't keep out, or walks 
fearlessly to it and knocks to be admitted. 



Camp 

Dear Molly, 

When I was packing up my belongings in 
Silvermine last week I came across some 
things that made me quite a youngster again. 

There was a box of toy soldiers that George 
brought back to Harry from Paris. There 
were also Harry's "patchy shoes." You re- 
member them — how you had his shoes patched 
because he had scuffed them out so quickly, 
and how he refused to wear them because, as 
he put it, "a gentleman never wears patchy 
shoes." 

These things have been up in my attic for 
the past ten years or more. I am sending 
them on to you by this post. 

When I was packing up the music I came 
across a lot of our old songs. There was 
one book that George and I used to sing to- 
gether. Do you remember that delectable 
one about — 

The chief defect of Henry King 

Was chewing little bits of string. 

120 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 121 

At last he swallowed some which tied 
Itself in ugly knots inside. 

And there was the good boy — 

The nicest child I ever knew 
Was Charles Augustus Fortesque. 
He never lost his cap, nor tore 
His stockings or his pinafore : 
In eating bread he made no crumbs, 
He was extremely fond of sums. 

Even now I can see George standing by the 
piano — his mouth open like a gold fish — 
pumping out a most profound basso, while 
Harry and you doubled in delight on the 
couch across the room. I am sure the boy 
never learned a single moral from these "Cau- 
tionary Tales." Boys never do. 

And now George is gone, and Harry is over 
there in the trenches, and you are hid away in 
the South, and I, I am writing on a deal table 
in a ten-by-six room while four hundred men 
in the hall outside watch a picture show and 
fill in between reels with — 

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag 
And smile, smile, smile." 

I thought it would be hard to break away 



122 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

from The Mill and the quiet life up there. 
But it wasn't. These aren't days for quiet 
lives. 

Only, now and then my thoughts steal back 
to the big room and the fire and the singing 
before bedtime, and I go on with my work 
strengthened by the thought that space and 
time and death can never entirely separate us, 
that we are very close together, if love lies 
between. 



Camp 

Dear Molly, 

Perhaps I did mean that. 

Anyhow, I believe it. I believe that the 
dead are never very far away. I feel that they 
come back to us on the currents of a great 
and surging love, as electricity throbs along 
wires to its appointed place. 

Now and again I ask myself what would I 
say to a man or woman who lost a son in bat- 
tle. I have written perfunctory notes to par- 
ents abroad — the conventional things all too 
full of conscious lies. But they are not what 
I would say were the parent or the wife near 
and dear to me. 

Telling them that their grief should be eas- 
ily borne because so many others are grieving 
is consolation that amounts almost to insult. 
Saying that they should be proud is a bitter 
thought. Pride they will have, but it will be 
pride dimmed with tears. Acceptance of 
God's will is easy enough to preach but not 
easy to practice. It is this sort of preachment 

123 



124 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

that makes men rail at God. No, we must 
have something that comes closer to our feel- 
ings than these, and I believe it is to be found 
in the realization that the dead are very near 
to us, much nearer than any of us ever realize. 

What we dread most is their absence, their 
not coming back. If we can believe that they 
are not far away, that they can and do return 
to us, then, why need we mourn? 

"I believe in the Communion of Saints." 



Camp 

Dear Sister, 

It is silly for you to worry. The boy has 
either not had time to write or his letter has 
gone astray. 

You must remember that the men in the 
trenches have but few facilities for writing 
letters because they cannot add even the light 
weight of paper and pencil to their packs. 
Then the letters have to be censored. Some- 
thing may happen while the letters are being 
transported back to the post. And then, be- 
tween here and France the mails suffer many 
delays. For a matter of fact, it amazes me 
that we receive any mail at all from the men at 
the front. 

So, cheer up! You'll hear from him. 



125 



Camp 

Dear Molly, 

In the next room they are having a French 
class. The room is crowded with officers and 
privates. A private from Wisconsin, who 
holds a degree from Grenoble and the Sor- 
bonne and who used to teach French out there, 
is acting as tutor. It is the most rudimentary- 
French, and he is teaching it after the parrot 
fashion. He reads the English, then the 
French, then they repeat each phrase after 
him, reading it from their little pocket man- 
uals. 

The lesson to-night is "In the Hospital." 

"You are better aren't you?" the instructor 
asks. 

"Vous etes bien mieux, n'est-ce pas?" 

"You have slept well." 

"Vous avez bien dormi." 

"We are going to change the dressing." 

"Nous allons changer le pansement." 

126 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 127 

"It will not take long, a matter of a few 
minutes. " 

"Ce ne sera long, Vafaire de quelques min- 
utes." 

"Oh! I am very uncomfortable!" 

"Oh! je suis mal a Vaise." 

"My back hurts." 

ff Le dos me fait mal/ 3 

"My foot is very painful." 

ef Mon pied me fait souffrir." 

"My pillow is so hot and hard. Will you 
please turn it?" 

"Mon oreiller est si chaud et dur. Voud- 
riez-vous le retourner?" 

"Thank you." 

"Mercl" 

"I am very thirsty. Some water, please." 

" J'ai bien soif. De Veau, s'il vous plait." 

"Open the window. I need air." 

"Ouvrez la fenetre. J'ai besoin d'air." 

"Will you please write my mother that I 
have received the Croix de Guerre?" 

"Voulez-vous, mademoiselle, ecrire a ma 
mere que j'ai recu la Croix de Guerre?" 

"Thank you very much." 

"Merci bien." 



128 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

And so it goes on, over and over, backwards 
and forwards, mixing the questions, halting to 
correct pronunciations. It is all very serious. 



Camp 

Dear Molly, 

Still I would wait. 

When men go into the first line trenches 
they are very much cut off from the world. 
Mails do get to them and do get out, but there 
are times when it is difficult to bring up even 
food and drink. The authorities know well 
that news from home and letters written home 
mean a lot to the men — keep their morale 
steady and steady the morale at home — and 
they do everything in their power to afford 
facilities. In fact, a man is obliged to write 
one letter to some member of his family before 
he goes into battle. 

If anything has happened to Harry — and 
of course we must recognize that eventuality 
— there may be a dozen reasons why he could 
not write or send word. You know that he 
would if he could. 

Meantime, my dear sister, I beg you to keep 
calm and to remember that you, too, hold a 
trench — the trench that cuts through the heart 

129 



130 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 

of America. In these days of peril you must 
be plucky. Our courage is the courage of 
you mothers. 



Camp 

Dear Molly, 

A night without stars. 

A night of teeming rain. 

The roads as plowed seas of mud and run- 
ning rivers. 

Here and there a light blurs through the 
blackness. A soldier stumbles past, the rain 
streaming from his poncho. 

Camp lies three miles down the road. The 
station is warm and cheery. 

I hesitate to step out into the dark. It is 
so utterly unknown, for I have never come that 
way before. Finally I pluck up my courage 
and start. 

Half a mile, and I am completely alone. 
No sound save the rain. No companion save 
rain and mud and the swish of my feet through 
it. No light. No sign post. 

I am soaked through to the skin. My hat 
brim bends around my face. Water streams 
from my finger tips. 

I do not know the way. I can only go on. 

131 



132 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
It is such a night as when 

. . . men walk nearer to God's throne 
Because they find themselves alone. 

A mile farther, and a sudden light throws 
me into silhouette against the mud. I lurch 
to the roadside. 

A truck splashes past, inexorable, awful, 
magnificent. Its tail light glows for an in- 
stant through the gloom, like an evil eye, and 
is lost around the bend. 

I plod on, utterly miserable. I cannot go 
back. I must go forward — like a man be- 
tween worlds, like a soul driven forth into the 
night. 

On and on. Still no sign of human habita- 
tion, still no light. Only a great desire to be 
home seizes me. I plunge forward through 
the merciless rain. 

Then the bend! 

A sentry halts me. His gun touches my 
coat. He peers into my face. 

"Pass on, friend!" 

Yes, I am coming to it! Already I have 
passed the outposts. . . . Home lies yonder 
where the lights cut the rain! 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 133 

I turn down a road that rings hard to my 
heels. Sentries challenge and cheer me with 
a word. I hurry by a line of darkened bar- 
racks, mount the steps and fling open a door. 

A fire crackles on the hearth. A soldier 
sits by it gazing into the flames. He rises 
when I approach. 

"Welcome home!" 

And now it seems as though the night were 
never dark, nor the rain pitiless. It seems as 
though the journey between worlds were a 
little thing — an instant's space — and then the 
welcoming. 



Camp 

My dearest Sister, 

Valor? 

No, you must have even more than valor. 
You who are capable of courage must be cour- 
ageous. 

Valor is a brilliant thing and young, bred 
of an hour's need. She has a flashing eye and 
a quick arm. She marches with head erect, 
and the boulevards echo her welcoming. Her 
costume is the brilliant panoply of war, and 
myriad banners flutter around her. Music- 
ally her side arms clink. She fears nothing. 
Death is the crown of her sacrifices. 

But Courage — Courage is a homely soul. 
Her face is seamed and her hair grayed. Her 
hands are gnarled from hard labor and her 
back bent with carrying great burdens a long 
way. Silently she stumbles forward, alone; 
and few know her passing. Her arms are 
prayer, hope, faith. She fears naught save 
the mercy of God. Death is the least of the 
sacrifices she can make. 

134 



Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 135 

For Courage picks up her burden after 
Death has passed, and she carries it on, tire- 
less, unreluctant, her eyes fixed upon the hori- 
zon. There she knows will appear, in His 
good time, the Dayspring of Peace. 



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